CHURCH TEMPORALITIES (IRELAND)—ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 12 June 1844 vol 75 cc587-667

Colonel Rawdon

had long entertained strong opinions on the question then before them, and when the House recollected that he was there as the Representative of the two-fold primatical see of Ireland, he trusted that his not contenting himself with a silent vote, would not bear the appearance of presumption. He wished first to tender his thanks to the hon. Member for Sheffield, for the industry, zeal, and, above all, for the constancy with which he had laboured in that cause. The conduct of the hon. Member in that matter appeared to him to be truly Conservative, and if the opinions which he had been mainly instrumental in eliciting on that matter from leading Statesmen on the side of the House at which he sat, had been expressed at an earlier period, they should not have had that frightful mass of discontent and despair of justice that at present existed in Ireland. He maintained, with all deference to the opinions of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the best way to maintain the Union, and make it palatable to the feelings of the people of Ireland, was to evince a disposition to inquire into the grievances of Ireland, and apply remedies where they were required. The hon. Member for Sheffield had for a long time devoted his attention to the subject—he had brought it forward year after year, and it was now high time that the exertions of the hon. Member should be attended with some practical results. They had recently heard from the right hon. Baronet opposite an account of the happy state of things as regarded different religious opinions in the town which he represents; and as a contrast to that, he begged to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet to the state of things in the city of Armagh, of which he was a Representative. Armagh was the residence of two primates, one of them being the primate of what he should call the English Church, and the other being the representative of what he should call the Irish Church. He found the primate of the English Church, enjoying a splendid revenue, residing in a palace surrounded with a park, sitting in his turn in the House of Lords, and in the absence of the Viceroy, one of the Governors of Ireland. He meant to speak in terms of the greatest personal respect towards that dignitary; but having described his position at Armagh, he should now turn his attention towards another Primate, also residing in that City, namely, the head of the ancient Irish Church. He found the Primate of the Irish Church renting an humble tenement, unnoticed by the Legislature, not allowed to take the smallest share in legislative proceedings, and even prevented by statute from calling himself that which he de facto was. The right hon. and learned Recorder talked of introducing subjects which conflicted with the feelings of Protestants, and described the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield as one of an irritating tendency; but he could assure the right hon. Recorder that it was not— it was the resistance to that reasonable Motion which appeared like trifling with the feelings of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and which prevented the doing away with the cause of irritation. The right hon. and learned Recorder said most truly that Ireland wanted repose and employment, but he (Colonel Rawdon) would remind the House that what mainly prevented repose in Ireland was retaining the causes of irritation, and continuing the want of that healthful employment, which it was the duty of a wise and paternal Government to provide. He believed that Mammon had been mixed up too constantly with the subject of the Church in Ireland; the purity and simplicity of the Protestant Church were injured by those temporalities. The right hon. Recorder had stated that large sums of money, so much as 95,000l. had been subscribed from private sources for the last ten years for the building of churches in Ireland, and he rejoiced to hear of such liberality; but surely that afforded evidence that the fabric of Protestantism in Ireland might be safely allowed to rest upon the good and liberal feelings of her followers. Was not that a sufficient proof that the Protestant Church of Ireland could exist without a state provision? He would admit with the right hon. and learned Recorder, that the Established Church in Ireland had of late years much improved in spirit, nor would he stop to inquire how far that improvement had been stimulated by the healthful agitation of the hon. Member for Sheffield; but he should say, however, that the persevering opposition which had been manifested by that body to the national system of education in Ireland had gone very far to make him consider such an institution inimical to the peace of the country. He had heard in the church of the parish where he resided, the Minister denounce the system of national education from the pulpit; and a Prelate lately appointed by the present Government, charged his clergy strongly against the system. Was the Government aware of that? Was the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) who introduced the measure aware of it, or had he now become indifferent altogether to its healthy growth? He thought it was the bounden duty of the Government to give a consideration to this subject. The noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland opposed the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield, and he must be permitted to say that a speech more wanting in argument he had never, during his experience, heard from any Minister. It was made up principally of extracts from the speeches of eminent men previous to the passing of the Act of Catholic Emancipation, and they were brought forward with a view to show that these eminent men never contemplated or anticipated any interference with the temporalities of the Established Church of Ireland. Now, those eminent individuals, from whose speeches the noble Lord had repeated extracts, were all distinguished in their time for being in advance of the opinions of the day, and was it not fair to conclude that if they were now amongst us with unclouded faculties, they would still be found in advance of what he feared was now the opinion of our day? They would, if they lived, see that the time was come for bringing common sense to bear on the subject; and would be found, as in former days, leading public opinion instead of following in its wake. His hon. Friend who had closed the debate last night (Mr. Redington) had expressed opinions which were deserving of the greatest weight and attention from the House. That hon. Gentleman had been appointed by Her Majesty's Government one of the Landlord and Tenant Commission in Ireland: and that appointment clearly showed that the Government considered him a man of sound reason and of great respectability—a man having a stake in the country, and well acquainted with the feelings of the people. That hon. Member disclaimed as a Roman Catholic, and on the part of the Roman Catholics, all wish to endow the Roman Catholic religion; and he believed that what fell from the hon. Member on that occasion was peculiarly deserving the attention of the House and of Her Majesty's Government. But he wished to address himself more immediately to the head of Her Majesty's Government, and to ask that right hon. Baronet, whether or not he considered with the Duke of Wellington, that the Church of England, as now established in Ireland, was the foundation on which the Act of Union rested? He was desirous, with reference to that portion of the subject, to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet to the demand which had been made by many of the Irish representatives to the recognition of perfect equality in regard to the ecclesiastical and educational arrangement between the several religious communities into which the population of Ireland was divided. They considered, and he had been always of that opinion, that the Church, as at present established in Ireland, was, instead of being a source of the Union's strength, was a source of the Union's weakness—that it was dangerous to the continuance of the Union, instead of being favourable to its maintenance. He had been hitherto favourable to the Union, considering that for the defence of England and Ireland it was advantageous to have them united; but he wished to ask the right hon. Baronet if he really entertained the opinion which had been expressed by his Colleague (the Duke of Wellington) that the present Church Establishment was the foundation of the Act of Union? It was looked upon as a grievance by the Irish people—and he would ask, as had been asked before, would such a grievance be permitted in Scotland? It would not; and why, then, was it forced upon the people of Ireland? It was said, forsooth, that it was done in accordance with the Act of Union; but he had read over, with great attention, the whole of that Act, and he saw nothing in the Article which was supposed to deal with the Church, to show that there was any notion whatever to apply it to the temporalities of the Established Church of Ireland. The temporalities of the Established Church of Ireland were now before the House—the temporalities alone were alluded to by the hon. Member for Sheffield, who did not propose by his Motion to interfere with the doctrine or the spiritual concerns of that Church. The hon. Member for Sheffield leaving the doctrines of the Church untouched, looked only to her temporalities, which had been so long a cause of discord and dissatisfaction in Ireland. He believed that the Church, without those temporalities, would be stronger, and that in consequence of the removal of such a source of irritation, the Union between the two countries would be more secure. He had hitherto been a friend to the Union, but how much longer did right hon. Members opposite believe he would consent to be a party to the Act of Union, if he were told that it mainly rested on such a foundation as the maintenance of the Church temporalities in Ireland. The right hon. Baronet opposite told the House, in speaking of the Dissenters Chapels Bill, that he was disposed to do what was just and right, and that was all that was required from him by Ireland. He joined the right hon. Baronet in supporting the Dissenters Chapels Bill, and if the right hon. Baronet showed a disposition to do justice to Ireland, he would rind that Liberal Members would be ready to assist him in his exertions to carry measures for that purpose. The other night the right hon. Baronet, in speaking of the Dissenters Chapels Bill, said— I say this, that if any great legal doctrine imposed the necessity of inflicting wrong, I would look out for a mode of obtaining an alteration of that doctrine; because, first I think that individual justice requires it: and secondly, because that, in proportion to the importance of the doctrine, so in proportion is increased the necessity of not subjecting it to the odium of being an instrument for inflicting wrong. The right hon. Baronet wound up with a beautiful elogium on that comprehensive gift of charity which should make us careful not to evoke the doctrine of law against the eternal principles of justice. Did not "individual justice" require that the Primate of the Irish Church should be placed on an equal footing with the Primate of the English Church? He complained that the odium of inflicting wrong was allowed to attach to the Church of Ireland, and if the right hon. Baronet acted in the spirit of his words on the Dissenters Chapels Bill he would find the same support which he received on that Bill. Let the right hon. Baronet in such a case be just and fear not—let him determine "not to evoke the doctrine of law against the eternal principles of justice," let him not put forward any Act of Parliament against the eternal principles of justice. The grievance now complained of had been frequently put forward on the part of the people of Ireland—it had recently been put forward, and not in a manner which addressed itself to the House of Commons so much as to public opinion out of the House, and that showed in itself that those who made the representation were losing confidence in the House of Commons, which was a "sign of the times," that ought not to be overlooked. The representation to which he alluded demanded for the people of Ireland a recognition of the principles of perfect equality in the educational and ecclesiastical arrangement of the several religious communities in Ireland. What could be more moderate than to require that the principle which had been carried out in England and Scotland should be applied to Ireland? It was a matter of history that both Houses had pledged themselves to redress the grievances of Ireland; and would any man in that House have the boldness to stand up and say that the Roman Catholics of Ireland ought not to consider the state of the Church of Ireland as a grievance? It was to be recollected that the Parliament at the time of the Union between Great Britain and Ireland was very differently constituted from the Parliament of the present day, and they ought therefore to see the propriety of adopting the principles of common sense in reference to the grievances of that country, for it was not safe to leave Ireland in her present state. He knew that might be said not to be a patriotic statement. He knew that it was not a course calculated to get up a cheer, but he maintained that it was real patriotism in such a case to tell the truth, and he would therefore say that in the present state of Ireland there was too much left for a foreign power to tempt. During the last two years he had been a good deal on the Continent, and he had spoken on the subject of Ireland with many foreigners, who had of their own accord brought it forward. Those foreigners included Protestant Germans as well as others, and they were all remarkably attentive to and well acquainted with the state of the relations between England and Ireland. It would be only necessary for him to call attention to the works of Raumer, of Kohl, of De Beaumont, as the reflex of public opinion on the Continent, to show how the subject was looked to by foreigners. They ought, therefore, to take warning in time, and not to allow themselves to be blinded by party, so as not to see the true interests of the country. He hoped they would interfere in time, for he believed that sooner or later the existing system had a tendency to lead to revolution. He believed the present state of the temporalities of the Church to be dangerous to the peace and well-being of society in Ireland, and he hoped there was an in-pendent party in the House of Commons who would support the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield, with a view to providing a remedy for those evils.

Sir J. Walsh

said, that if he agreed with the hon. Member who had spoken last as to the comparatively little interest which the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield had created in the House, he was of opinion that if much interest existed with respect to it out of doors, public opinion would be in that respect reflected within the House. He did not imagine that even in Ireland there existed much excitement on the subject, or that it was looked on as one of absorbing interest, for it was brought forward as a subordinate topic amongst the various topics of agitation in that unfortunate country. He had observed, indeed, that the hon. Member for Cork, in the course of agitation which he had recently thought it proper to pursue, had dwelt upon the temporalities of the Church as a subordinate topic, and it appeared to be quite lost in the greater question of Repeal of the Union. The hon. Member for Sheffield had received much praise for his speech, but there were parts of that speech which he had listened to with considerable pain. He was sorry that the hon. Member had indulged in the history of past times with a view of showing that Ireland had been treated with oppression by England. Those who were the advocates of Repeal might appropriately use such arguments 5 but if the hon. Member for Sheffield were inclined to maintain the Union, he could not think it was desirable to dwell on such a topic and at such length. He not only thought that the selection of his statements was injudicious, but that the hon. Member appeared to look upon the subject through a pair of party spectacles. He could not think that the Penal Code was introduced, as the hon. Member said, in order to bolster up the Protestant Church in Ireland, but to meet the state of circumstances that followed in Ireland upon the expulsion of the Stuarts. He much regretted the personal topics which the hon. Member for Sheffield had so unnecessarily introduced in his speech. He thought the sanctity of private life ought not to be lightly invaded. The Members of that House, enjoying as they did great privileges, having the undoubted right and power of making any observations they pleased in that House, unquestioned by any one, and having the power of imparting great publicity to every word that fell from their lips, ought to exercise that power with great caution and great circumspection. He knew nothing of Archdeacon de Lacy, whose name had been introduced by the hon. Member. He had only heard of that gentleman from the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin; but surely it was not necessary to cast reflections upon the whole Church, in consequence of the conduct imputed to one individual. It was scarcely necessary to hold up the name of an individual recently deceased, to the reprobation of the public, as a luxurious and pampered ecclesiastic, when the House knew nothing of the case, except that Archdeacon de Lacy spent a large private fortune in acts of charity, and was much beloved in his neighbourhood. The hon. Member for Sheffield had gone on to give his version of a late declaration made by the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, and he attributed to the right hon. Gentleman that he had abandoned all those high principles upon which he had formerly asserted the maintenance of the Irish Church, and now rested its defence upon the ground of mere expediency. He must say that he did not so understand the right hon. Gentleman. He understood him to have said that a compact exists, and that as far as any Parliamentary engagement could have force and validity this compact possesses that force and validity. It certainly appeared to him that if ever there was a case in which the national faith ought to be preserved, the present was that case. It had never been more solemnly pledged on any occasion than to the maintenance of the Protestant Church in Ireland. He did not conceive that the Gentlemen opposite were amongst those who underrated the importance of preserving the national faith. They anticipated from the observance of our faith with foreign nations the improvement of the great social system, of the prevention of those wars which desolate the human race. But it was not less necessary to maintain the national faith in our domestic than in our foreign relations. He could conceive instances in which circumstances might be so altered as to entirely abrogate the original contract, but that was not the case here. The same danger to the Protestant religion existed now as at the time of the Union and of the Catholic Emancipation Act, and there was the same necessity for the maintenance of the national faith. The hon. Member for Sheffield had also alluded to a declaration made by the right hon. Baronet some years ago, that Ireland was his principal difficulty. He dared say Ireland did present considerable difficulty, and he was quite sure that there was no probable, possible, or imaginable Ministry which would not find the question of Ireland extremely difficult and complicated. But he did not think the question of the difficulty of Ireland had been fully stated by the hon. Member for Sheffield, or by any other Member on that side. The difficulty of dealing with Ireland was this, that unfortunately the problem which the statesman had to solve was as to the means of governing a country distracted by religious differences, and where those differences existed between two parties of almost equal force and importance in that country. Almost all the Gentlemen opposite ran away with the notion of population alone, and thought that when they mentioned the relative numbers of Protestants and Roman Catholics, the importance of the latter was exactly in proportion to their numbers. But he contended that that was a totally mistaken view of the state of society in that country. The Protestants of Ireland were attached to this country by important links—by the ties of religion as well as of sympathy and affection, and it did not give a just idea of the importance of the Protestants to represent this as a mere question of numbers. The force of a nation did not consist in the mere numbers of those who formed the particular classes. Mind, intelligence, property, circumstances —all these possessed great weight in the balance, and any course of legislation which should outrage or wound the Protestants of Ireland, would destroy the tranquillization of that country. Gentlemen seemed to represent the Protestants of Ireland as a small knot, having nearly the whole property of the country, but having nothing else. This was by no means the case. By far the largest proportion of the property of Ireland was, no doubt, in the hands of the Protestants; but it was not merely amongst the landed proprietors that Protestants were found. If you went into the great commercial towns, the Protestants were nearly as numerous as the Roman Catholics, and in the middle classes a very large proportion of the population were Protestants. Take, as an illustration, an instance which had occurred in the late State Trials. The Government had passed a Bill regulating the mode of striking Special Juries, in order that the selections might be fairly and equally made. It had been stated in that House that the number of persons qualified to act as Special Jurors for Dublin was 750, and of that number, taken no doubt promiscuously from the flower of the middle classes, there were only 150 Roman Catholics. This might serve to show that the opinions of the Protestants could not be outraged, nor their rights invaded, with impunity. He hoped the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield would be thrown out by so large a majority as would give the Protestants of Ireland security for the maintenance of their Church and their religion. He was desirous with the maintenance of the rights of the Protestant Clergy, to couple, if possible, some provision for the Roman Catholic Clergy. He regretted that some such provision had not been made to accompany the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, as he thought it would have made that a more complete and a more satisfactory measure. He was aware that there were difficulties now which had not existed then, but if it were [possible to devise such a measure, he was sure it would be the most likely means to reconcile religious differences.

Mr. Maurice O'Connell

; There is one misfortune which I have always observed to attend every application to this House on behalf of the people of Ireland, no matter by whom brought forward, or how ably supported, and whichever party be in power, the result is sure to be unfavourable. We are told that what we ask cannot be conceded; but the House is always ready to give us something which we do not seek for, and, in many cases, would not accept; In the present instance the practice has not been departed from; for when we seek inquiry into the Temporalities of the Irish Church, we are answered by the hon. Baronet who has just sat down that he will not give us that inquiry; but kindly offers a State provision for the Catholic clergy —a provision which we do not seek, and they indignantly refuse. The time for such an offer is past. In 1828, we would have gladly received Emancipation on those terms. The parties then, as now, in power, refused the concession. And I thank God that the Catholic clergy will not now suffer their sacred ministry to be polluted by any contact with the money of the State, The hon. Baronet urges as an argument against this Motion, that it has ceased to create interest out of doors. Without going into matters of a more absorbing interest which at present divert the people of Ireland from attention to this question, let me ask if it be not the fault of those in power if a seeming apathy prevails with regard to this question. Year after year it has been brought forward, to be year after year baffled and defeated. Repeated defeat naturally generates despondency and despair. You have produced the state of despondency, beware lest you super induce the feeling of despair. And if the consequences of that despair be calamitous or fatal, blame yourselves for the result. If you refuse the present Motion, moderate as the request is, let me ask you, what you mean to do for Ireland in this Session? You have two, and only two, attempts at legislation at present on your books—the County and the Municipal Registration Bills. One we are told, is to be read a second time on the 1st of July—an ominous day for Ireland; and if you succeed in "crossing the water" with that Bill you may, perhaps, take the other into consideration. Now, of these two Bills, it is hard to say which is the more cruel mockery of the people of Ireland, I will not now waste time in discussing these Bills, but simply show the feeling of the people of Ireland with regard to them, by the fact, that I have myself presented upwards of 300 petitions against the Counties Registration Bill, and were it thought possible that the Bill would be pressed, I have no doubt, that I should have had at least an equal number against the other. The passing of either of these Bills this Session may be now looked upon as impossible, and will you separate without any attempt to satisfy, without even any demonstration of an intention to inquire into the grievances of the people of Ireland? You may now cheaply give your friends the opportunity of saying that your intentions, at least, were good. Refuse this Motion, and what argument do you leave the friends of British connection in your favour? You have, up to this moment, succeeded in your great undertaking against the Irish people, your prosecution has proceeded to judgment—the so-called conspirators are in the safe custody of the keeper of Richmond Bridewell. Is their influence diminished? Is their determination shaken? Are not the advocates of the measure, for agitating which you have accused their colleagues of conspiring, more earnest, more ardent, more determined? Does not the voice of remonstrance and indignation ring from universal Ireland; and will you not, even by granting the paltry boon of an inquiry, mingle one allaying element in the universal commotion? But we are told that the hon. Member for Sheffield has been unhappy in his historical review, and that he ought to have abstained from violating the sanctity of private life in the instance of the late Archdeacon De Lacy. Sir, the hon. Member complained, not of the man but of the system; and if there were a fit example of the system, it was the individual who formed the illustration. Archdeacon De Lacy was the nephew of a Protestant Bishop. He was also the nephew of a Catholic priest, who lived and died in apostolical poverty. The brother of that reverend priest, the Protestant Bishop, sent young De Lacy to the University, ordained him, and shortly, on the demise of an old dignitary, placed him as Archdeacon of Meath, in the receipt of near 3,000l. a year of ecclesiastical income. Private property he had none, I am told he married a wealthy lady; but if so, he owed the alliance to his church dignity and income—paternal property he could not have had, for his father was in the same situation as the parent of the right hon. the Home Secretary's friend Jack Cade, namely, a bricklayer. What service the Archdeacon did to the Church or State, I know not. It is enough to know that he died enormously wealthy; and let me contrast his circumstances with those of a dignitary of the Catholic Church, well known to the right hon. Ba- ronet the Member for Tamworth, the late Dr. Troy, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. I believe it will be allowed, that he was a staunch and useful Friend to British connection; and after the labours as a Prelate of half a century, he left at his death the enormous sum of ten pence half-penny as the amount of his earthly wealth. Archdeacon De Lacy died rich—Dr. Troy miserably poor. During his episcopacy, more than one Protestant Primate of Ireland amassed fortunes and founded noble families, while he, the preserver, as I may say of your power in Ireland, was buried at the cost and by the contributions of his, flock. In which of these do you recognize the representative of the Apostles? Have not the flock of the latter reason to be dissatisfied with the system of which Archdeacon De Lacy was a part? And with these instances before you, will you refuse us this inquiry? Sir, the right hon. the Recorder of Dublin has surprised me somewhat, by the discovery that he himself belongs to the moderate party in Ireland! The Recorder a moderate politician! I am sure such is his own conviction; but I can only compare the hallucination which leads him to think so, to that of the celebrated performer, Mr. Liston, who, while delighting audiences by his personification of Paul Pry, and General Jacko, deplored the want of taste which did not appreciate his tragic powers as Hamlet or Macbeth; but be the right hon. Gentleman moderate or violent, he at least has admitted that Reform has done much for the Protestant clergy. That the Establishment was in a bad state, and has been improved—why not carry your improvements something further, and by giving your clergy a motive for labour, bring them by apostolic poverty nearer to apostolic exertion? If you do not, I tell you that it is you and not we, who are weakening the Protestant Church of Ireland—that you are, while you profess to defend and support, undermining and sapping the foundations of that Church; and if the fabric should crush you and your connection with Ireland in its fall, we, at least are blameless. Sir, often as this question has been discussed in this House since I had the honour of a seat therein, I have never before taken a part in the debate. I have abstained in order to allow men of more weight, and more anxious for public attention, to lay their sentiments before you; but on the present occasion, I think it my duty, as well as that of every Catholic Member to come forward, lest by our silence we should seem to acquiesce in the charge most unhappily made by the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies against us, by his interpretation of the Catholic Oath. I shall not waste your time by dwelling on that unhappy subject; but sure am I, that if in the course of the debates on his own Bill, which the Recorder says has done so much for the efficiency of the Protestant Church in 1833, any such charge had been made against us, that the eloquence of the noble Lord, in reply, would, while it delighted the House, have petrified the offender. I am reminded that such a charge was made on that occasion, and then triumphantly repelled by the noble Lord. I hope I may be pardoned for my imperfect recollection, when the noble Lord's own memory has proved so defective. Sir, before I conclude, I ask the Ministers of the Crown again to pause before they refuse us this trifling concession. Ireland is confessedly their difficulty. Let them recollect that the forces now occupied there may be found necessary in other quarters. We have heard much about continental feelings on the subject of Ireland. Let me remind them of a pamphlet, the work of a Prince of the present blood royal of France—of which we all have heard—and which most of us have read. You may call it indiscreet and foolish if you please; but though it may be disowned in high places, still we cannot deny that it speaks the feelings of a large portion of the French press and people. And with such a document before us, I ask you, how are you prepared to act in the event of hostilities with France? Suppose, for a moment, a squadron of French steamers arrived in an Irish port, and landing troops on the Irish coast, on whom are you to rely for aid to repel the invaders? Will the Protestant Clergy drive them from the shore? Is the Protestant population sufficient for that purpose? No, you must rely upon the strong arms and stout hearts of the Irish peasantry; and with what face can you ask for—with what hope can you expect— their aid, when you have refused their advocates even the miserable boon of an inquiry into the temporalities of a too wealthy Church Establishment? Act now as you would wish them to have acted. Give us now some earnest of what you will most liberally promise, and let it not be said again, as it has been truly said before, that terror and necessity have wrung from you what prudence, justice, and conciliation could not induce you to grant.

Mr. Forbes

saw in all the speeches of those who advocated the present Motion, however hon. Members might differ as to matters of detail, one uniform purpose to effect the destruction of the Irish Church. He was at no loss to understand the outcry raised against that Establishment; for it was engendered by the exertions made by the Church of late years for the improvement of the people. He had thought that the question now revived had been set at rest by the liberal concessions made to the Roman Catholic body, and by the sacrifice which had been made by the Church of 25 per cent. of its income. Feeling assured that the Committee moved for by the hon. Member for Sheffield would produce nothing but vexation, by exciting groundless expectations, and weaken an Establishment which he trusted would long continue a blessing to the Empire, he never would consent to loosen one stone of that Protestant Church on which, as he believed, depended the happiness and prosperity of the Empire.

Mr. Dillon Browne

could have wished that the Motion of his hon. Friend had been more explicit. The speech of the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland had removed all hope for the people of Ireland during the present Session. The noble Lord told them that the circumstances connected with the Church of Ireland should not be inquired into; that not a ray of truth should be permitted to penetrate its darkest and innermost recesses. A Parliamentary inquiry might be prevented, but not an every-day exposure of the grievances of the establishment. In Mayo, in the parish in which he resided, his tenants paid a large sum in tithes, and yet there was no church in the parish. His mother and sisters were Protestants, and had to go to a neighbouring parish for Divine Service, but from which they were driven by hearing the religion of the father and the brothers reviled. Twelve miles from his house there was a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Marley, and his congregation for some time consisted of his clerk. That clergyman was one Christmas-day late for dinner, and apologised, by saying Divine Service had been delayed because his clerk had kept him waiting, as he had gone to mass. It was said the tenant did not now pay the tithes. The tithe was paid by the landlord; but he added the amount of tithes to the rent, and the Catholic tenant felt the burthen precisely the same as before, and tithes were, as rent, as odious to him as ever. He knew the opinions of the people of Ireland on this subject, and he could say there was no one subject on which they were more excitable than that which was now the subject of debate. If the proposition of the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland were adopted, it would serve to strengthen the connection between the two countries. In England the Church of the majority possessed the Ecclesiastical State Revenues. It was the same in Scotland. It was not so in Ireland— but the very opposite. Ireland was obliged to contribute to the Ecclesiastical State Revenues of the three countries. Was this reasonable—was it just. The Irish had this burthen imposed upon them, and with that they supported their own clergy, whilst in Dublin alone, within the last few years, they had contributed 170,000l. to the erection of Catholic places of worship. The people of Ireland had too strong a recollection of the miseries inflicted by the Established Church to endure it much longer. From the reign of Elizabeth it had prevented the people from acquiring a portion of the soil, whilst its clergy were engaged in preaching sermons, the text of which was "No Popery," and the moral extermination of the Catholics. The Established Church prevented the Irish from having good Reform. It was the impediment to improvement; and sooner or later the Established Church must perish in Ireland. Whether the Repeal of the Union were carried or not, the Established Church must perish in Ireland. In England it would not be endured for six months. Intelligence was being rapidly diffused in Ireland, and he called upon that House to lessen the danger and remove one of the most crying evils and abuses under which the people of that country suffered, by assenting to the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield.

Mr. George Hamilton

certainly regretted that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield should feel it his duty to make those annual attacks upon the Church of England in Ireland. He regretted it, not because he thought that the friends of the Church of England in Ireland had any reason, either to shun or to apprehend any discussion upon the subject; but because these discussions, although they had, in a degree lost their interest both in England and Ireland, had a tendency to resuscitate and exasperate all those bad feelings and animosities, which happily were subsiding rapidly in Ireland, and the revival of which, every well-minded man must deplore—of this he was sorry to say, he thought the House had an instance in the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down. He must confess he should have thought that the reception which the Motion of the hon. Member had experienced last Session, in the House, even from his own party, would have served to convince him that the period is gone by when the question of the Church in Ireland can be used as a political engine, and for the attainment of any political purpose. It is true the hon. Member had been perhaps a little too candid on that occasion. He had comprised within his resolution not merely the confiscation of the Church property in Ireland, but its re-distribution. On the present occasion, the hon. Member, apprehensive perhaps of a similar result to his Motion, has adopted the more cautious course of moving for a Committee of the whole House. But what does that Motion really mean? Does it not mean, that if the Motion should be affirmed, the hon. Member will submit propositions similar to those which he propounded in his resolution last year. The hon. Member, with his usual candour, has distinctly admitted this. He has distinctly admitted that his views and intentions upon this remain unaltered. The noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, and his right hon. Friend and Colleague, had stated so fully the grounds upon which the Church of England in Ireland was to be defended, that it was unnecessary for him to add anything to their statements. Independently, however, of all considerations connected with policy and public faith, and a regard for national compacts, he was not afraid to avow that he felt it his duty to uphold and support the Church, because he believed that it was calculated to promote what he considered to be truth in religion— and further, that he thought the State was bound to maintain it, because the State was a Protestant State, and ac- knowledged the doctrines of the Church of England to be true.—Having urged that argument on a former occasion, he should not urge it further now; on the present occasion, he was rather anxious to take up and deal with one or two popular objections that are usually advanced against the Church of England in Ireland, and examine how far practically and in point of fact, they are founded on solid grounds of reason and justice. His right hon. Colleague had laid before the House, statements as to the income of the Irish Church. From these statements, it was clearly deducible, that if a new distribution of the benefices and funds of the parochial clergy was made, each beneficed clergyman would have an income of about 220l. a-year, and a congregation of about 620. He could not understand how any hon. Member could say, that if a Church is to be maintained at all, an income of 220l. would be found more than enough for an educated gentleman, occupying the position and station with the concomitant expenses appertaining to the station of a Protestant beneficed clergyman. But the usual and apparently more plausible objection against the Church, and the present Church arrangements, was this; it is commonly urged and not uncommonly supposed that a large proportion of the benefices in Ireland are excessive in their wealth, and that they are principally in those parts of Ireland where the congregations are smallest. Now, with respect to this, he could only say, that for his part, he could not, and would not, be a party to maintaining a system of excessive wealth, or of unnecessary sinecures in a Church—for neither one nor the other, in his opinion, could conduce to the advancement of religion, for which all Churches were instituted. But he should like to place before the House the real state of things in Ireland in that respect. If the hon. Member for Sheffield, who exhibited such historical research in raking up whatever could be said against the Church, or any of those hon. Members who are so forward in making vague charges on this subject, would take the trouble of examining the Reports of the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Inquiry in 1836 and 1837, they would find in page 616 of the third Report, and page 672 of the fourth, that in 1833 there were forty benefices in the provinces of Armagh and Tuam, with a net income of more than 1,000l., and twenty in the provinces of Dublin and Cashel, making in all sixty out of 1,395. But if any hon. Member will further take the trouble of estimating the effect which the reduction of 25 per cent. on the rent-charge has had upon those forty benefices, he will find that there are, at the present time, but thirty-one benefices above 1,000l. a-year, of which twenty-six are in the province of Armagh, and this without deducting either ecclesiastical tax or poor-rate: and if the inquiry be carried a little further, and the proper deductions made for ecclesiastical tax and poor-rate, it will be found, that when the Church Temporalities Act is fully in operation, after the next avoidance of those benefices—to say nothing of dissolutions of unions, which may be effected—there will be just nine benefices in Ireland worth more than 1,000l. a-year, seven of them being in the Protestant province of Armagh; and in round numbers the scale of benefices below 1,000l. a-year, will be nearly as follows:—

Between 1,000l. and 600l.	Dublin and Cashel	69
Armagh and Tuam	81
Subject to a tax varying from 12l. 15s. to 7l. 10s.
Between 600l.and 300l.	Dublin and Cashel	197
Armagh and Tuam	161
Subject to a tax varying from 7l. 10s. to 2l. 10s.
Under 300l.	Dublin and Cashel	525
Armagh and Tuam	353
Free from tax.

In other words, that considerably more than one-half the benefices in Ireland will be under 300l. a-year, and twelve out of fourteen under 600l. a-year. He (Mr. Hamilton) had stated that there were at the present time thirty-one benefices in Ireland, the net value of which is about 1,000l. a-year. He had the pleasure of being acquainted with most of the gentlemen who held them, and it had occurred to him to inquire what actual available income arises from each of these benefices for the support of the incumbent, and to maintain him in his position as a gentleman and clergyman. He had inquired from them—first, the gross income at the present time; second, the amount annually paid to curates; third, the deduction made by law from their incomes, as for example, poor-rate, county cess, ecclesiastical tax; and fourth, the other necessary deductions from income, such as cost of collection, and the subscriptions to dispensaries, schools, and charitable institutions, which are necessary appendants to their situations. The result he thought would surprise the House. He held in his hand letters from gentlemen holding twenty-three benefices—the largest in Ireland—and he had made an abstract of their returns. He would not trouble the House with the names of the benefices or the individuals, but any hon. Member was quite at liberty to examine his list. The gross income of those twenty-three benefices, as returned by the Commissioners in 1833, was no less than 36,633l., giving an average of nearly 1,600l. a-year to each benefice; their gross income at the present time was 27,824l., or about 1,200l. a-year on an average to each, while their actually available income, after deducting 4,743l. for curates and the other legal and necessary payments to which he had alluded, was but 16,476l., or little more than 700l. a-year on an average for each of these 23 gorgeous benefices, although twelve of them were at present free from ecclesiastical tax, by which their value would be reduced by near 15 per cent. He would illustrate what he was stating by one or two instances. He would take the case of Armagh benefice, and Armagh benefice was held by a gentleman occupying the very first position in Ireland as a scholar and a divine—a gentleman well known to many hon. Members —the Rev. Dr. Elrington, formerly a Fellow, and now Regius Professor of the University which he had the honour to represent. The benefice of Armagh was returned in 1833, as worth 2,187l. a-year, obviously one of the best livings in Ireland. Its present gross value as stated by Dr. Elrington is 1,725l. The deductions are as follow:— There are six churches and ten curates in the benefice; Dr. Elrington pays his curates 669l. a-year. The deductions by operation of law are:—

Ecclesiastical tax	£101
Poor rate	63
Rent of residence, there being no glebe-house	143
Visitation fees	5
Diocesan schoolmaster	2
	£315

The other necessary deductions are—

Collection	£70
Hospitals, dispensaries, schools, societies, which Dr. Elrington states came to 150l. in 1841	90
	£160
In the whole	£1,145

Leaving Dr. Elrington in possession of 580l. available income to maintain his position at the head of a great parish, to provide for a family, and to contribute to private charities, which are not included in the deductions he has made. Now, considering Dr. Elrington's known abilities, he would like to know whether, if he had devoted himself to any other profession that could be named, he could not, after the lapse of so many years, have acquired larger means of providing for a family, and a larger recompense for the time and cost of his education, and the application of the abilities he possessed. He was unwilling to weary the House, but, considering the attacks that had been made upon the Church, and the readiness with which particular instances were taken advantage of by hon. Members opposite, he hoped he would be excused if he took another instance. It related to another of the prizes in the Church in Ireland. A very distinguished divine, also a Fellow of the College of Dublin, writes as follow:—

"Taking the sum of 1,021l. given in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Report, as the value of his living, the following deductions are to be made, from which to give the net amount:—
	£	s.	d.
1.—25 per cent. on rent-charge bonus to landlords	207	15	0
2.—Curates' salaries	172	0	0
3.—Rent of house, there being no glebe	75	0	0
4.—Expense of collection	25	0	0
5.—Tax payable to Ecclesiastical Commissioners	39	0	0
6.—Poor rate	30	0	0
7.—Visitation fees, &c	5	5	0
	£554	0	0
Deduct 554l. from 1,021l. net balance to incumbent, 467l."

So that here, in the first instance, we have this living of 1,021l. reduced to 467l. But what other unavoidable demands has this clergyman to pay? He states— I have to contribute to four dispensaries, a fever hospital, to the support of a Scripture reader—of schools and schoolmasters, and to the necessities of the poor in cases not aided by poor-house relief. He adds, It may give you some idea of the extent of the demands on a clergyman, to mention that my books show, for the last year, a sum of 120l. given in various charitable purposes, and most of them unavoidable. In looking into the items, I think it would be difficult to reduce this sum in any material degree. Here, then, is a gentleman of the highest attainments and of the highest professional character, a gentleman formerly a Fellow of the University, and having retired on a living of more than 1,000l. a-year in nominal value, and that living affording him for the support of his station in society the income of 347l. a-year. He adds, I really think, that there are many parishes, in which, perhaps, a still more striking result might be obtained by contrasting the supposed with the net value. He would now turn to some of the small benefices, with the view of showing how far in those cases the property of the Church in Ireland was adequate to the wants of the population. A society was formed in Ireland four years ago, for the purpose of supplying from voluntary subscriptions, the means of providing curates, in cases in which the necessity for additional curates might appear the most manifest. It was a rule of that society, that in every case additional services should be performed in the benefice, where such aid might be granted. The committee last year had been enabled to grant aid in thirty-seven cases—the Church population in those thirty-seven cases was 71,146— nearly 2,000 in each on an average—and the average income of the incumbents of those thirty-seven benefices was 114l. a-year. He would select two or three of those cases—the parish of Derryaghy, in the diocese of Connor, containing a population of 3,052 members of the Established Church—in extent five miles long, four broad—net income 112l. 10s., out of which the incumbent pays 75l. to a curate; the parish of Carlingford, population 549 members of the Church—length of parish ten miles, breadth four—population scattered—net income 188l.; parish of Ballyscallen, diocese of Connor, members of the Established Church, 512. No church, no incumbent, and no legal provision for the support of a minister. Benefice of Ballinakill, in diocese of Tuam— forty miles in length, and twenty in breadth. In reference to this benefice, the late Archbishop of Tuam makes the following observation:— The incumbents in each of those districts are quite unable, from the poverty of their incomes, to employ curates to discharge the du- ties of these territories. There are Protestants scattered along the coasts, and some in the islands; a clergyman ministering in these places must be a missionary, and must go from place to place in the spirit of mission. There are instances, not a few, of children being baptised by Roman Catholic priests from the want of clergymen of the Established Church. Others have grown up without baptism, and in some cases the clergyman, after attending to his ministrations, on his return home will have travelled above thirty miles. He would not weary the House by adducing any other instances—the whole of the thirty-seven cases were of the same nature. He had adduced them for the purpose of showing that whether you take the general averages, or whether you take particular instances of large benefices—or whether you take the condition of the smaller ones, and consider the efforts which are requisite, and which are now in progress to provide clergymen from private sources, the result is the same—namely, that the Church Establishment in Ireland is now under the provisions of the Church Temporalities Act, at the lowest point at which a Church Establishment can be maintained. The question upon which the House was now about to vote was therefore really this—whether the Church of England or Ireland was to be maintained, or whether it was to be most unwisely, most unnecessarily, and most unjustly extirpated. It was only necessary for him to make one observation more— the hon. Member for Mayo who had preceded him in the debate, had insinuated that there was an indisposition on the part of the Church to give information respecting its condition. He could assure the House this was not the case—there was no reason why the Clergy or the heads of the Church should withhold any information. They had nothing to apprehend from inquiry; on the contrary, it was their full persuasion as it was his, that the more the subject was discussed and inquired into, the more favourable would be the result as regards the condition of the Church in Ireland.

Sir C. Napier

did not think it was good taste in a Protestant Member of that House to hold up his religion as better than that professed by Roman Catholic Gentlemen who were sitting there. He believed that every man thought the religion which he professed to be the best. The hon. Member who had just spoken, hoped that the Roman Catholics of Ire- land would be converted to his creed. He asked that hon. Gentleman if he had ever heard a Roman Catholic Member get up and express his hopes for the conversion of the Protestants? No; they had better feelings; they believed in their own religion, and did not wish to make proselytes. The right hon. Gentleman the Recorder of Dublin had stated that the average income of the Protestant Clergy of Ireland was 170l., but the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken, said that the average income of the Irish beneficed Clergy was 220l. a year. Now, he did not think that that was too much for a Protestant clergyman, but he thought it was too much, considering the congregations which the Irish Protestant clergy were in the habit of addressing. He asked hon. Gentlemen, when they went over to Ireland, to go into the different districts and see the congregations which the Protestant clergy preached to, and they would find that many of them preached sermons to no audience but their own clerks. Was that a state of things calculated to please the Catholic? Hon. Gentlemen opposite might shake their heads, but he asked them whether, generally speaking, there was not an immense number of churches in Ireland where there was an audience that could scarcely be called a congregation? Could any man therefore believe that the Catholics could be satisfied when they saw their own ministers preaching for ten or fourteen hours a day? [Lord Stanley: Preaching?] Well, preaching, administering the mass, and performing the other duties of their calling. Would any man tell him that a Roman Catholic minister could look around with anything like pleasure or satisfaction, and contrast his own position with that of the Protestant clergyman? Was it possible that he could, when the Protestant minister was well paid for preaching to no congregation, and he worked throughout the day, either preaching to or confessing his flock, without any remuneration besides what he took from the small incomes of his own parishioners? He thought the hon. Member who had last spoken, ought to have given the House an idea of what the Roman Catholic clergymen received for their labours. He had not the smallest doubt that the Catholic clergy of most districts of Ireland only gained a miserable subsistence. The hon. Member had given them a statement of the value of the Protestant benefice of Armagh, but he should have also laid before them a statement of the income of the Catholic clergyman of Armagh, and the House would see if he were treated in a proper manner. Was it just that all the tithes of Ireland should be given to maintain a Church which counted only 750,000 members? It had been said that the Roman Catholic clergy would not be endowed by the State; that they would not receive an income. Now, suppose a salary were put into the bankers' hands for them, 200l. the first year, and 200l. the next, they might depend upon it if that system was only persevered in for two or three years, the Catholic clergy would be softened a little, and would soon come and take their incomes as comfortably as possible. If they knew the money was there for them, they would in a very short time invariably go and take it. He would not go more into detail, for he considered that his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Ward) had made so admirable a speech—that he had so thoroughly gone into the question, that it was impossible for any hon. Member to bring the matter more fairly before the House; and up to the present time nothing like a decent answer had been made to it. He did not know what the noble Lord opposite the Member for Lancashire, and the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, when they came forward with their strong fire, might say to reconcile them to the present state of Ireland, but he thought it was in vain to hope for the pacification of Ireland through their measures. The first shot that was fired against us, would do more good for Ireland than all the speeches that could be made in that House. That was his opinion, and he asked hon. Gentlemen opposite if it was wise and politic to leave Ireland in the state in which she then was, trusting or waiting till war should force them to do her justice? We were now at peace, it was true; but was there any man in this country who could tell us how long we should remain so? He understood that the settlement of the Oregon question was not going on very amicably. The French were making a treaty with Spain relative to an attack on the Emperor of Morocco, and were anticipating the occupation of Ceuta, on the southern strait of Gibraltar. If such an event as that happened, would not Ireland be a clog round our necks? The Members of the Government should read the pamphlet of the Prince de Joinville; he had read it with great care and attention, and it had shown him what could be done against us in the event of a war. The Prince had clearly made out that it was morally impossible to prevent the landing of troops in Ireland from France; and in that case, then, he (Sir C. Napier) asked, if the loyalty of the people of Ireland was suspected, what would be our position? He saw the danger of all these things, and the Government of the country ought to come forward to render that justice to Ireland which she had a right to expect. [Question, question].

Mr. Borthwick

could not permit a division to take place without stating his reasons for voting against the measure. He did not believe that the Established Church of Ireland was a grievance in that country, or that it was considered to be so. Throughout the agitation to which Ireland had been exposed during the last two years, no allusion had been made to the Established Church as one of the causes of complaint against this country. The union of Church and State, indeed, had been occasionally complained of by Irish Roman Catholics—men who belonged to a Church of which the head was at once a temporal monarch and a spiritual chief, but who, nevertheless, though it were a heresy in their Church, declaimed against the union of Church and State. [Mr. M. J. O'Connell: No, no.] Did he understand the hon. Member to say that opposition to the union of Church and State is not a heresy among Catholics? [Mr. M. J. O'Connell: Not with us, though it may be in Don Carlos's Catholicism.] Then, all he could say was, that Don Carlos is the better Catholic. But the fact was, as he had been arguing, that the union between Church and State was not the grievance in Ireland or the real foundation of this Motion. They were called upon now to abolish a Church of 300 years' standing, because, first, of Mr. O'Connell's agitation; and, secondly, of the Prince de Joinville's pamphlet. Not that he participated in the opinion of the multitude with regard to the work of the illustrious Prince. He thought it an able pamphlet, and, considering that it was written by a Frenchman, he saw nothing so very extraordinary in its views, nothing to authorize the gloomy forebodings of many who were represented by hon. Gen- tlemen in that House, or of those (pointing to the reporter's gallery) who were represented by learned Gentlemen above. He believed, for his part, that their fears were entirely unfounded, and that for the repulsion of King Louis Philippe and his steam-engines, they could rely on no surer power than the people of Ireland. It was the duty of the State to provide a religion for the people, and, finding in Ireland a religion sanctified and hallowed by the prescription of 300 years — finding too that those who called out most loudly against that religion were not prepared to substitute in its place their own faith, but were determined to have no religion at all, and to make the State as regarded Ireland atheistical, to use the language of the hon. Member for Belfast, and believing that no evil more formidable could befall any pan of the Empire, he certainly should oppose the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. Without religion it was impossible to govern mankind, and until they could show him that the present system in Ireland could be replaced by another equally beneficial, he should feel it to be his duty in that House and out of it at all times, and by all means, to maintain the present establishment of that country.

Mr. Vernon Smith

congratulated the hon. Gentleman for having on that occasion saved the Irish Church; and at the same time having established for himself the character of one of the best speakers against time that had ever stood up in that House. He was not surprised at the small amount of attention the question appeared to command on the other side of the House, for many equally important subjects, founded equally upon practical grievances, had on their first introduction been met in the same manner. He believed that the House had been counted out upon the question of Reform shortly before that measure was carried; and the Emancipation Bill was long looked upon as a thesis for the practice of young Members of Parliament, rather than a practical question of legislation; therefore, however light they might look upon the question of the Irish Church now, he had no fears as to the ultimate result. They might postpone the settlement of the question, but he warned them not to delay it until it was forced upon them by a revolt in Ireland, or a foreign war; and he believed, had the late report of the sinking of a British man of war by the French fleet, off Tahiti, been correct, very little time would have been lost in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion of this question of the Irish Church. But how did the Government propose to get out of the difficulty which this question occasioned to them? Did they not find the Church of Ireland the great obstacle of their Government at every turn? The right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had declared that it was the intention of the Government to promote, where they could do so, Catholics to civil offices. What was the hindrance? The Church of Ireland. The Government were also anxious to advance the system of education the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) had, much to his credit, introduced into Ireland. But who had been the principal opponents of that system of education? The Church of Ireland. Again, in striking the jury in Ireland, upon the recent State Trials, they found the Irish Church interfering in the exclusion of Catholics. At every turn, and in every act, they were met by the Irish Church. No man would, he thought, contend—not even the hon. Member for Dublin University—that if there was no such institution as the Church of Ireland now existing, we should or would create it. Then was this an age in which a thing that would not stand the application of that test was to be defended and maintained in the condition in which they found it? One ground upon which the Irish Church was defended, was property; but every day greater inroads were made in property— every Railway Bill that passed that House was a greater interference with the rights of property than would result from a readjustment of the temporalities of the Irish Church. Did they maintain the church on the grounds of religion? He did not know how they could maintain it in its present position on these grounds. Was it as a means of conversion that they proposed to employ the Irish Church? Certainly if it had proved itself an efficient agent in the propogation of Protestantism, he should be prepared to maintain it. But he contended that no established church was capable of propagating a religion by proselytising. Religion was generally propagated by missionary and itinerary bodies. It seemed to him to be the essence of an established church, that it should be the church of the majority. As it was, religion in Ireland was in the worst possible condition, and, undoubtedly, the vote he should give in favour of his hon. Friend's Motion would be a vote of want of confidence in the Ministry, so far as related to their Irish policy, if they did not take some step as to the Irish Church. Beset as the subject was with difficulties, he thought that their great object should be to produce something like equality between the churches of the majority and the minority. To talk of the Church as a pecuniary grievance, was to take up the narrowest ground of argument against it. It was ridiculous to suppose that in a country like Ireland, the exaction of such a sum as the Church's revenues amounted to, could be considered as a great pecuniary grievance. He considered the Church to be a religious and not a pecuniary grievance, and it was as such and as an anti-Protestant institution—as far at least as the propagation of Protestantism went—that he was prepared so to deal with it. There were, in his opinion, but three ways of such dealing. To destroy altogether and leave religious remuneration to the voluntary contributions of congregations. To divide the funds proportionally between the Church of England, the Church of Rome, and the Presbyterians—or to diminish the revenues of the Church of England in Ireland, and devote such diminution to the payment of the Church of Rome. Under all the circumstances, he thought that the best course which they could adopt would be to subtract something of the revenue of the Protestant Church in order to pay the Catholic priesthood. It would be said, perhaps, that the Catholic priesthood would not accept such a boon. He replied, try them. It was our duty, at least, to offer it to them. The position in which he proposed to place them, was not such as to make them entirely independent of their congregations, and dependent upon Government for support, but partially dependent upon both, a position which, as he believed, would also have the effect of ensuring their fidelity to both. He did not, however, see any chance of Government making any immediate movement in the matter; and deriving as they did so much of their support from the High Church party of the country, he did not anticipate that any such proposition would be entertained. There was, however, one question which he wished to put to the Government, and particularly to the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, had said, and as he believed truly, that he was unwilling to offer any insult to the Roman Catholics of this country. He wished the Government then to remove the greatest insult to which they were exposed. He alluded to the oath taken by Roman Catholic Members on their admission to Parliament, and he had alluded ,to the noble Lord in connection with the subject, because that noble Lord had a short time ago read the oath in that House, for the purpose of taunting the Catholic Members, and of attempting to prevent them from voting upon questions which they believed that they had a right to express their opinion upon.—[Lord Stanley had no such intention.] Then why had the noble Lord read the oath if it was not for the purpose of taunting and intimidating the Catholic Members. So strong was the impression on his mind that such was the case, that he had given notice of a Motion for the alteration and amendment of the oath in question, but although from peculiar circumstances he had not pressed that Motion, he trusted that the Government would take the matter up. The First Lord of the Treasury in the debate upon the Catholic Relief Bill had expressed his disapproval of the suggestion that Roman Catholic Members should not be allowed to vote upon questions affecting the Church. He stated explicitly that he would never give his consent to excluding Members of the House from voting in particular cases. He could really not imagine then the object of maintaining the Catholic oath, of which this should he the effect, according to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Would any one say, that it was any security to the Church? Certainly not. A vote was given for it at the time of its enactment upon that ground. No one could pretend to be the interpreter of the oath, and to decide upon its exact meaning. It was left to each individual Member to understand it as he thought fit. It was useless, and being irritating was worse than useless. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by stating his intention to support the Motion.

Sir J. Graham

I am not disposed to address an unwilling audience at any length, particularly when I see the empty condition of the Benches on both sides of the House.^✶ I can only account for the apathy and languor which have characterized the debate by the circumstance of the hon. Member for Sheffield having in his zeal for the overthrow of the Irish ^✶ At this period (about a quarter past nine) there were not more than forty-seven Members in the House. Church outstripped public opinion, and therefore he is not supported by those in this House who are considered to be the representatives of public opinion. The right hon. Member for Northampton referred particularly to the Roman Catholic oath. It certainly is not my intention to follow the hon. Member into a consideration of that disputed point. No proposition has been made to the House for the alteration or abolition of that oath, and, as the hon. Member opposite has stated, that it is his intention to bring the matter forward upon a future occasion, I shall reserve myself for that opportunity of discussing the subject. I quite concur in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman that each Member of this House is bound, in any vote he may give, by his own conscientious opinion with regard to the interpretation of the oath which he has taken. Roman Catholic Members are admitted into Parliament with the understanding that the oath is binding upon their consciences, and therefore each Member has a perfect right to put his own interpretation upon that obligation, and to satisfy his own conscience. I must say, according to my judgment, that the hon. Member opposite has described correctly and truly the great difficulty of dealing with the religious portion of the question which has reference to the Irish Established Church. The hon. Member accurately stated that the Irish community is divided into three classes in matters of religion; that the great majority of the people of that country are in favour of the voluntary system; that a large portion is attached to a Stipendiary Church; and that the minority is allied to an Established Church in connexion with the State. The hon. Member truly stated that there are great difficulties surrounding this question. He has asked the Government what course they intended to pursue in dealing with the Irish Protestant Church? I have upon many different occasions entered so largely into this subject, and have expressed my opinion upon all its points so explicitly, that the hon. Member can only expect me to give one answer to his question, and in doing so I feel convinced that I am giving expression to the opinion of all my colleagues. It has been the object of the Government, and will continue to be its object, to remove all the abuses which exist in connexion with the Irish Church, to purify it to the utmost; but after having removed these abuses, and after having thus purified it, it is the intention of the Government to use its best efforts resolutely to maintain it as the Established Church of Ireland. He agreed with Mr. Buxton, who said that the abuses in the Established Church acted as the greatest impediment to the spread of Protestantism. The Government has been most anxious in its constant endeavours to remove those abuses. The hon. Member for Sheffield said that the Irish Protestant Church is the worst church in Europe. [Mr. Ward: I quoted Queen Mary's Letter, in which it is described as the worst Church in Christendom.] Queen Mary was no friend of the Protestant Church. [Mr. Ward: I referred to the period, of William and Mary of 1698.] I beg the hon. Member's pardon, I admit that at a much later period than the Revolution there existed many abuses in connexion with the Established Church of Ireland. But have we not done our best to remove these abuses? Was not the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, introduced by my noble Friend near me (Lord Stanley), when connected with Lord Grey's Administration, a large measure of substantial reform? Has not that measure had a most beneficial effect? Has it not greatly diminished the overgrown hierarchy of that country? The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Dublin and his Colleague had pointed out the progressive effect of this measure. Sinecures have been greatly reduced, no fresh pluralities have been created, non-residence has been suppressed; and, speaking generally, whatever might have been the reproach of that Church in antecedent periods—whatever was the date or the truth of the assertion that it was the worst Church in Christendom, I believe its Ministers may now challenge comparison with the Ministers of any other Church in Europe. Generally speaking, they are resident and faithful and zealous in the discharge of their duties; and I am quite satisfied whether the members of that Church increase or diminish, the abuses referred to will no longer impede its progress in the affections of the Irish people. The right hon. Gentleman said, that the proper test of the usefulness of any establishment will be found in the question, whether, at the present moment, they would be prepared to create it de novo. Now, I do think that this is rather wild doctrine, and a very dangerous test, whereby to try ancient institutions. I can point to many institutions we value and respect, and which have existed from the earliest times, but which, on account of the gradual change wrought by time, and the progress made by society, we certainly should not be prepared to say that it was absolutely advisable to create them de novo. But there is no advantage gained in discussing this proposition. We find the Protestant Church established in Ireland. It has existed as such for three centuries. It was brought under the consideration both of the British and Irish Parliaments at the time of the Union, and then confirmed and ratified. I do not wish to say that the Fifth Article of the Treaty of Union prohibits any interference with the temporalities of the Irish Church. I will guard myself against that assertion; but that Article embodies a solemn obligation that any interference with these temporalities shall be based upon the principle of the maintenance and the prosperity of the Church. Upon that ground we became parties to the Church Temporalities Act, and to the Tithe Commutation Act. Before supporting these measures, it was our duty carefully to examine the article in question, and we came to the conclusion that these measures were conceived, and could be advocated, in a spirit friendly to the Church, tending to its security and support, and by no means partaking of that spirit of spoliation, of a desire to alienate its property, confessedly the object of the Motion of the hon. Gentleman. But the right hon. Gentleman who spoke last made one very important admission. Until the right hon. Gentleman took part in the debate the general strain of argument upon the other side of the House rested upon the wealth, alleged to be excessive of the Irish Church, and upon the vast amounts stated to have been voted for education in connexion with it. Much misapprehension prevailed upon this point. Instead of 800,000l., of which the revenue of the Irish Church formerly consisted, Parliamentary arrangements have reduced the sum to about 650,000l., and if from this we make the deductions which can be fairly claimed, I believe the net income arising from all sources will not exceed at the most 590,000l. per annum. But whatever may be the exact amount, the matter was much simplified by the admission made by the right hon. Gentleman. He stated that he considered the Church of Ireland to be no pecuniary grievance whatever. He thought that the raising of such a sum as 500,000l. or 600,000l. a-year in such a country as Ireland could not be fairly considered as a pecuniary grievance. He stated that the Church was, in his opinion, not a pecuniary, but a religious grievance, and that he was prepared to deal with its revenues upon the ground not of its being an intolerable pecuniary burthen, but a religious wrong, and an Anti-Protestant Establishment. I do nut know how far these opinions may be shared by hon. Gentlemen around the right hon. Member for Northampton, but they certainly gave a new character to the debate. Were I called upon to defend the Irish Protestant Church —not from attacks connected with its pecuniary condition, or on the ground of any feelings of jealousy between it and the professors of rival creeds, but upon its merits as a religious establishment, and as a bulwark of the Protestant faith, I should be very willing to join issue upon the point; but really, after all, I am scarcely called upon to do so, as these opinions of the Anti-Protestant character of the Church of Ireland would, I imagine, find few supporters upon the opposite side of the House. But the right hon. Member referred to the speech of the hon. and gallant Commodore, the Member for Marylebone, and I must say that— reason failing— no better course can sometimes be adopted than the utterance of threats. The hon. and gallant Commodore threatened, that in the event of England finding a foreign war upon her hands, there would soon be an end to all debates upon the subject, and that the question would be settled in the sense which he desired, with the report of the first cannon fired in a European war. And then the hon. and gallant Gentleman went on to affright us with wars and rumours of wars. His prophetic eye saw the Prince de Joinville cruising in the Chops of the Channel, and he declared that unless we immediately settled the question, by yielding all that could be demanded, there would be an end to the security of the Empire. Now, I must say, that these assertions do great injustice to the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. I do not believe that—should this country become involved in a war—their accus- tomed loyalty and brave spirit would be found wanting, or that they would not give to Great Britain that help which they had never failed to render in the day of battle. At the same time, I cannot think that the House of Commons, composed of Representatives of the United Kingdom, will be overawed in its deliberations by threats of that kind. And notwithstanding the high authority from which on the present occasion these threats proceeded, I know no means so likely to counteract their influence as the employment on our coasts of the gallant Commodore himself. I do not fear that any foreign Power will long keep possession of the Chops of the Channel, if the gallant Commodore be there, bidding defiance to the enemies of his country, and doing his duty on his native element as vigorously, perhaps more expertly than he does it in the House. But the right hon. Member for Northamptonshire was also pleased to taunt the Government upon the subject of alleged inability to do justice, in questions involving the interests and feelings of the Roman Catholics, on account of the warm Protestant feeling of a portion of its supporters. And yet, inconsistently enough, the right hon. Gentleman had the candour and justice to commend the present Government with respect to its conduct as to Irish national education. In that respect Government has not failed to give full effect to the principles of their predecessors in office, notwithstanding the opposition which it has met with from many of its usual supporters. I may allude also to another and a somewhat similar topic. Notwithstanding the opposition encountered by Government—an opposition which I much deplore—we have had no hesitation, from our own sense of justice, and for no other reason, in conferring upon a small and comparatively powerless body of our fellow countrymen—the Unitarian Dissenters —a boon which the Government believes to be their due. Was it then fair, in the face of two such facts, was it reasonable to suppose that in reference to 7,000,000 of Roman Catholics the Government will fail to do every thing which in its honest judgment it believes that policy and justice demand? The right hon. Gentleman has taunted the Government with introducing a measure last year in favour of the Church of England, which practically was of no effect. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that measure has been of great practical benefit, for we have raised 600,000l. for Church purposes, without drawing any money from the public purse. That sum has enabled us to establish from 150 to 200 additional clergymen in the manufacturing districts, at salaries from 150l. to 200l. a-year. Therefore, I must say, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) has been somewhat premature in stating that this measure has been inoperative. I am quite prepared to do ample justice to the speech which the House had the pleasure of hearing last night from the hon. Member for Sheffield—a speech distinguished by the ability and perspicuity which always mark the speeches of the hon. Member; but, having said thus much, I must also say, that though the hon. Member laid down very extensive premises, nothing could well be so unsatisfactory as his conclusion. The hon. Gentleman appears to have ransacked the stores not only of Hansard, but of all history, in preparing his speech; he read extracts from speeches delivered in the House of Commons, extracts from speeches in the House of Lords, extracts from history, extracts from sermons, extracts from pamphlets, extracts from the Edinburgh Review, puffs of auctioneers, placards on the walls, speeches at tavern dinners and Pitt Clubs, speeches at Exeter Hall, Mr. Glover's Book, M'Niell's Sermons, Mr. Montgomery Martin's Philippics, O'Connell's Repeal Newspaper, Von Raumur's Travels in Ireland, and the Bibliotheque de Geneve. In short, the hon. Gentleman brought to bear on the subject all his historical researches, but though nothing was more ample than the hon. Member's premises, nothing could be more narrow than his conclusion. The hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. D. Browne) said, that he should have wished the Motion had been more direct, and the attack upon the Established Church in Ireland more palpable. I must say I very much agree with the hon. Member for Mayo. The hon. Member for Sheffield gave the House an extensive view of his opinions with respect to the Established Church, the condition of which he wished the House to consider. He stated that the maintenance of the Protestant Church in Ireland was felt as a grievance by the Irish people. He stated that Europe desired to see Ireland liberated from that last remnant of the yoke of a rot- ten system. He stated that he preferred conceding at once that which it would be dangerous any longer to withhold, and then thinking it fatal to the State to maintain the Irish Church in its present condition any longer—to support that remnant of the yoke of Ireland —that remnant of a rotten system—instead of proposing to Parliament any remedy of a bold and decisive character, which might immediately meet a pressing danger, he simply said, that having stated thus much, he should ask the House to go into Committee on the present state of the Temporalities of the Irish Church. As a preliminary step that would be quite intelligible if the hon. Gentleman had given any explanation as to what he proposed to do when we got into Committee: but to my amazement, the hon. Gentleman said, "I don't ask you, by your votes on my Motion, to pledge yourselves to any specific measure." Certainly, if I had not heard the hon. Gentleman speak on this subject before, I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman had opened at great length a subject which he thought was replete with danger, but on which he had no fixed opinion, no remedial measure to propose; but having recalled to my memory former speeches of the hon. Gentleman in which he had fully stated to the House what he thought ought to be done by way of remedy for this grievance of the Irish people, I know what he desires is, that a sum equivalent to seven eighths of the revenues of the Irish Church should be taken from it to be transferred to, and distributed among the religious sects of Ireland. That was the hon. Gentleman's remedy, as propounded by him some time ago. Mark his conflict of opposite opinions on the other side. Some Gentlemen said that the Irish Establishment had given no strength to religion in Ireland. That would be a startling fact, if it could be established. But how was it made out? Then the gallant Commodore had said, that the whole question was a question of money, and that though the Roman Catholic priests would refuse to be endowed yet that Her Majesty's Government had only to put the money into the bank, and they would accept it in the end. However that might be, I must say, that the House, as it appears to me, cannot entertain this Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield, knowing his opinions with respect to the evils of the Establishment in Ireland, and knowing his views of the remedy, unless the House be prepared to take steps for the spoliation of the Church of Ireland, and for the transfer of its property to rival and hostile Churches. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) said, that an equality of endowment was desirable, and something of that kind, I believe had been stated on former occasions by the noble Lord, the Member for London (Lord J. Russell); but Gentlemen who are intimately acquainted with Ireland, and who are most conversant with the opinions of the Roman Catholic Clergy of that country have stated in the House, that in their opinion the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy would be impolitic and inexpedient, and that if an endowment were offered, the clergy of that Church would refuse it. Then, how was that equality to be obtained except by depriving the Church of its funds, and placing all Churches without distinction in Ireland on the voluntary principle? The Roman Catholic Clergy remaining unendowed, equality of endowment is only to be obtained by stripping the Protestant Church of Ireland. The noble Lord, the Member for London (Lord J. Russell) if I am not mistaken, said, on a former occasion that he had insuperable objections to such a spoliation, and that he was not prepared to despoil the Church of Ireland of its Temporalities. Now I can conceive the policy of making a great sacrifice for the purpose of obtaining national peace and tranquillity. In 1825, this question of the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy was a good deal considered, and Mr. O'Connell then proposed that a measure should be passed for this purpose, which, as he said, would have the effect of binding the clergy of Ireland to the State by a golden link. Undoubtedly, if I had been then present in Parliament, I should have supported that measure; but I now call upon the House to consider that we are not at present debating whether some provision should be made for the Roman Catholic clergy, but whether we are prepared to deal with the Established Church of Ireland in the spirit of the views which the hon. Member for Sheffield has on a former occasion explained to the House. The question is whether the House shall go into Committee for the purpose of depriving the Church of Ireland of the greater part, or even of the whole of its revenues. That is the real question to be decided. Now, I will not cavil about the precise terms of the 5th article of Union; I am not prepared to dispute the historical fact stated by the hon. Member for Sheffield, that Mr. Pitt had changed considerably the words of the 5th article and modified it from that form which had been adopted in the first instance by the Irish Parliament; I will not dispute that Lord Cornwallis held out the hope to the Roman Catholics not only of equality of civil rights but of endowment from the State for their Church; and I believe also that the alteration of the original article had reference to the intentions of Mr. Pitt to establish that equality, and to provide that endowment. I admit this, because it is matter of history, and if I were asked whether I think that the article was so framed as to admit of making a provision for the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland, I should answer that I consider the article was studiously so framed as to sanction such an interpretation, but I must still contend that without casuistry, which it would be unworthy of the House of Commons to apply, the proposition of depriving the Protestant Church of its revenues is utterly inconsistent with that article of the Union. That is my deliberate opinion. Some Gentlemen have stated that no precise reference to the temporalities of the Church' is made in that article, and I have heard some allusion in the course of the debate to the case of the Union with Scotland. I beg pardon of the House, if I am obliged to state at some length facts which are well known, but it is necessary to make a complete statement of the argument. I must say that, with respect to Scotland, so far from thinking the case of the Union with Scotland analogous to that with Ireland, it seems to me directly the converse in all the most striking particulars, In Scotland at the time of the Union, the religion of the majority of the people of that country was the religion of the Stale. In Scotland at the time of the Union, the religion of the majority of the people of that country was the religion of the representative body. In Ireland at the time of the Union the religion of the minority was the religion of the State. In Ireland at the time of the Union the representative body were exclusively Members of the religion of the minority. So far therefore were the cases from being parallel that they were the converse of one another. With respect to the temporalities of the Church of Ireland and the temporalities of the Church of Scotland, while there were express articles in the Act of Union with Scotland, that the rights, privileges, discipline, and forms of the Church of Scotland should be maintained, no allusion was made in direct terms to the Temporalities of that Church. In fact the article with respect to the Churches as to Temporalities stood on the same ground exactly in both Acts of Union; and Parliament cannot therefore give a strained interpretation to the article of the Act of Union with Ireland respecting the Temporalities of the Established Church of Ireland without being liable to be called upon to give the same strained construction to the corresponding article with respect to the Temporalities of the Church of Scotland in the Act of Union with that country. England is bound to maintain the rights, privileges, and forms of the Church of Scotland, and as I contend its property, by the Act of Union with Scotland; and England in like manner is bound by the Act of Union with Ireland to maintain the Church of Ireland in the same state as it was in at the time of the Union with regard to the possession of its property; and this was declared to be a fundamental and essential article of the Union. I am not aware that I have misstated the effect of the article, and the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) will, I believe, agree with me, that that article was studiously framed to maintain unimpaired the endowments of the Church, and without resorting to casuistry, to justify the commission of a gross breach of faith it is not possible, to say we are justified in depriving the Protestant Church of Ireland of any portion of her property for purposes not connected with the immediate advantage of that Church. The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) both referred to pledges given by Parliament at the time when his Motion for the Repeal of the Union was made in 1833, and stated that Parliament had declared that it would do its utmost to remedy every just complaint of the people of Ireland, and make every effort to pass well-considered measures for that purpose; something also has been said of the ab- sence of all measures for the benefit of Ireland which has marked the present Session. Now, with respect to the measures which have been brought in or passed since the debate on this question last year, —in the first place, an important alteration in the Poor Law of Ireland has been effected, by which the poorer portion of the community has been relieved from what they felt to be an oppressive rate. That remission to them, had been a real, substantial benefit. I have heard with extreme regret comments made by some hon. Members on two measures relating to the franchise, which have, however, been well received in Ireland. I speak confidently and sincerely when I say that those measures had been framed by Her Majesty's Ministers in a spirit of honesty, and with a sincere desire to extend the Franchise and to improve the county constituency, and to give every facility for the free exercise of popular rights. I am prepared to show that the first of these measures, the County Registration Bill is framed so as to insure the removal of a grievance which exists —namely, it is calculated to arrest the progressive diminution in the county constituency. I am prepared to show that the Bill affords a considerable enlargement of the county franchise, and also, by its provisions an increase of the civic franchise. Her Majesty's Government have also prepared another measure, which, for the first time, this night I have heard condemned in this House. I have, however, not heard any condemnation of it from Ireland. I refer to the Bill for equalising the municipal franchise between Ireland and England. It is proposed by this Bill to assimilate the municipal franchise of Ireland with the franchise in England, to make it identical and it is anticipated that real benefit to Ireland will be the result, because one ground of complaint and discontent will be removed. It has been said that no step has been taken to push forward the Bill for facilitating Catholic endowments; but the taunt is undeserved, as it is the intention of Government to proceed with it as soon as possible, and they are in hopes to be able to carry the Bill in the present Session. I may state shortly the effect of the Bill. Certain grievances have been proved to exist. With reference to charitable bequests, there is a board in Ireland for the management of them. In that respect, as well as in others, there is a difference be- tween England and Ireland, and amongst other differences there is this, that it may be doubted whether the law of mortmain extends to Ireland. The state of the law however presents very considerable difficulties in limiting trusts for the endowment of Roman Catholic priests in Ireland. To enable this board then to receive charitable bequests, such as Roman Catholics would be likely to make, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a Bill having that object in view; and to insure its success, it is intended that the board should in future contain several Catholic Members who, both in number and in character, would be likely to possess the confidence of the Catholic body; and it is intended to enable that board to receive endowments for the benefit of the Roman Catholic priesthood. A Bill for the purpose of accomplishing these objects, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce, and it is their determination likewise to use their best endeavours that it should during the present Session pass into a law. When hon. Members recollect what has been done to allay discontent in Ireland, through the medium of the Tithe Commutation Act, the extension of the county franchise, respecting the inadequacy of which so many complaints had been made by hon. Members opposite, the assimilation of the franchise in municipal towns of Ireland to the franchise in this country; when they recollect, that the Government now propose to reconstruct, by a Bill, the Board of Charitable Bequests, by adding to it Catholic Members who should inspire confidence in the Catholic body and who would specially be empowered to receive and hold endowments for the Catholic clergy; and though last, not least, when they recollect, that Her Majesty's Government intend this year to propose an increase of the vote for national education in Ireland to the extent of one-third of its former amount, making the grant upon the whole 70,000l.; I think hon. Members will give credit to Her Majesty's Government for having given proofs of their sincere desire to allay discontent, and to remove all just causes of complaint with respect to ascertained grievances in Ireland. It is possible, from the unhappy religious differences which embitter what is framed in the spirit of kindness and charity, that Ministers maybe defeated in all their beneficent objects; but it is their sincere desire to prove to their Roman Catholic fellow subjects, that everything which will gratify their wishes consistent with a sense of duty to the policy of this state, and with the solemn engagements of national compacts, they are not only ready, but anxious to effect. But as to this Protestant Church, which is considered by the Roman Catholics, as we have been told, as a type of inferiority, I must say that, having looked at the question deliberately, I am not prepared to take either a small or a large portion of its revenues with a view to transfering them to Roman Catholic endowments, or of applying them to secular uses in which Roman Catholics can participate. As a pecuniary question, it is said to be of little consequence; but that the subversion of the Church is looked on as a point of honour, feeling, and policy; and I am bound to say that, to a proposal for transferring its revenues, in any shape, to any other party I will never give my consent. It has been said that Protestantism in Ireland means Protestant property. I am inclined to believe the converse of the proposition, it is at least equally true, that the subversion of the Protestant Church means the recovery by forfeiture of Protestant estates in Ireland. Well, at the time Emancipation was passed, if it had been said that when you emancipate Roman Catholics the maintenance of the Protestant Church will be impossible, the declaration would have been scouted by hon. Gentlemen opposite exactly in the same way as they now deny that to subvert the establishment, and to strip it of its property, will give such a shock to the title of Protestant property that forfeitures will not stop at ecclesiastical endowments. It is said that declarations cannot arrest events. That may be true; but I am quite satisfied there frequently arises a crisis in which a frank exposition of the nature of the danger, if it does not avert it, at all events prevents any headstrong, bold, and dangerous resolution, taken under false impressions which may precipiate the evil, and hasten the catastrophe. Those entrusted with power are bound to state what they can do, and what they cannot do. For my part I can only repeat, that the attempt— I will not say to subvert the Church, that might be disavowed—but to take a large portion of its revenues, either for Roman Catholic endowments, or for secular uses, is forbidden by justice, forbidden by the Compact entered into by the United Parliaments, and forbidden by the sanction of the highest moral obligations. On these grounds briefly stated (I have more than once urged them at length on former occasions) I shall give ray unhesitating and uncompromising opposition to this Motion, which on the face of it is unmeening; but if it mean what I suspect is unjust, dangerous, and indefensible.

Lord John Russell

Sir, the question now before the House is in itself of such importance that I shall endeavour to confine myself to its proper limits, and avoid as much as possible any of the other important subjects regarding the state of Ireland. I do so the more readily, both because I have had an opportunity in the early part of the Session, of stating to the House the opinions which I hold with respect to several of those questions, and because there now stand on the Books of the House Notices of the Motion to be brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Waterford, and the Bill regarding Registration, which will bring two of those important subjects under the consideration of the country. But at the same time, while I wish to avoid dilating upon these subjects, it is impossible in considering the question before us, to put out of view the state of Ireland. The noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, in his speech of last night, rested the defence of the Church mainly upon prescription. He adverted to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, delivered a few nights ago, and the noble Lord stated that he considered that a prescription of 300 years was a sufficient reason to induce the House not to interfere with the temporalities of the Church of Ireland. Now, Sir, passing by the question which my hon. Friend then addressed himself to —and it was a totally different question from that which is now under the consideration of the House—I should say that the argument of the noble Lord might have force in it, if this were not a question of great urgency—of great peril I should say, in the present state of Ireland. It cannot, I think, be urged that prescription is to be paramount on a question of this kind; because, I may ask, if that is to be the case, how is it you justify the interference, 300 years ago, with a longer prescription than that? I think that with respect to England, at all events, the prescription was rightly interfered with. I think that the circumstances of that day and the revulsion of religious opinion which took place in England was a sufficient ground for the change in the Ecclesiastical Establishment, and in the application of the temporalities of the Church of England, which was then enacted and sanctioned by Parliament. But it was an interference with prescription, it was setting aside a very long prescription, to deprive the Catholic Church of the whole of the property which then formed the temporalities. And, Sir, if we look to the present state of Ireland, if we look to the proceedings which took place last year, when three or four millions of people assembled to declare their discontent with the Government under which they live— when we see that after legal proceedings have been taken to suppress, as was said, the agitation, there still remains discontent, that there still remains the Repeal Association, the evidence of that discontent, with its exchequer more flourishing, I believe, than it was even last year,—I should say these are proofs that there must be some grievance in the state of Ireland—something of which the people of Ireland have to complain, to which this House ought to give its most serious consideration. And as one of those who wish to maintain the Union, who deny that the Repeal of the Union, even in the view taken by that part of the Irish people who are Repeaters themselves, would be a benefit to Ireland, I feel myself obliged to look for other remedies. I cannot admit on the one hand, that so much discontent pervading such large masses of people, showing itself so continually in manifestations which cannot be mistaken, I cannot admit that their complaints must be altogether unfounded. I cannot admit, at the same time, that the remedy which has been proposed by the people of Ireland themselves, namely, a Repeal of the Act of Union, would be a remedy which this House ought to sanction, or which would remove the grievances of that people. Then, Sir, among the questions to which our attention is turned, a most important one is that which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield has brought before us—the state of the Church of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman has said most truly, that my hon. Friend stated his case with great ability and perspicuity. The defence of the Church of Ireland was undertaken first by the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, and then by the right hon. Gentleman the Recorder of Dublin, who peculiarly represents as Member for that University, the Clergy of the Church of Ireland. Now, on listening to the right hon. Gentleman as the avowed defender of that Church, I was surprised that he altogether left out of the question the condition of religion in that country. Any one who heard him might have supposed that here was a Protestant Church in a Protestant country, that my hon. Friend had stated there were certain abuses in its constitution, and that the right hon. Gentleman, denying the existence of those abuses, and showing that there was no cause for reform, was proving, as he thought satisfactorily, that that Church should be maintained in its present extent and integrity. But, Sir, is that the question? is that the present state of Ireland? Does not the right hon. Gentleman who is the defender of that Church himself admit, what we know has been too generally the case, an extraordinary inattention and neglect to the faith of the great majority of his countrymen in Ireland, when he puts the question on that issue? I am ready to make greater concessions than any one has yet made to the right hon. Gentleman. For the sake of argument I will admit that his 81 cases of plurality and his 109 cases of non-residence are in course of reduction, and that in a very few years there may be no case either of plurality or non-residence. I do not think he can wish me to go farther. And yet, putting the case in that shape, I still say that the state of the Church of Ireland is an anomaly and a misfortune in that country, and that it requires the most serious attention. We may find it very difficult to say what it is now necessary for us to do; but as to the case of the Church of Ireland, the cause of complaint is a very short one. It is this—that here 800,000 or 850,000 persons, out of a population of 8,000,000, are the only part of the people whose religious instruction is cared for by the State, receiving a sum of 650,000l., or thereabouts, yearly, for the support of their Church Establishment. That merely in this statement appears to be a case which has no parallel in any other country in Europe. Now, this being so plain and obvious a cause of complaint among the people of Ireland, which anywhere else would be called a very pressing and intolerable grievance—the right hon. Gentleman, an Irish Member, stating the case of the Church of Ireland, altogether omits it, entirely forgets the existence of those six millions and a-half of Roman Catholics, and thinks this element to be no part and parcel of the subject matter of consideration, when we have the question of the Church of Ireland before the House. Sir, I believe there is no such case at present existing in Europe—no case of any Church of this kind. I believe the only thing like a parallel to it that can be found in history is the state of the Episcopal Church in Scotland during the reigns of the Stuarts, under which that country was convulsed with disturbance and insurrection, and oppressed with tyranny and wrong. The same uneasiness, attended by symptoms which are different only because this age is different from the 17th century—the same marks of discontent, arising out of the same disposition to monopoly, and to inflict a religion which is not that of the people on the rest of Ireland—exist with respect to that country, as formerly existed in the case of Scotland, and I cannot but believe that some remedy is required before you can expect peace and tranquillity to be restored in Ireland. I will now take the objections which have been urged against our entering upon the consideration of this question in a Committee of the whole House. The noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland slates that there is an article of the Union which binds us to keep the Church intact. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State argues that ground not in the very temperate, and I should say cautious manner in which it was treated by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Treasury on a former occasion, but he puts it higher than I ever heard before. His view is this —that the words being the same with respect to Ireland, in the treaty of Union, as were employed in the former treaty with respect to Scotland, you are obliged to maintain in complete integrity the Church of Ireland and its property, as they existed at the time of the Union. I was astonished—I could hardly repress my astonishment at the moment, to hear such a statement from the right hon. Gentleman, because he was a party to a Bill which took away a considerable part of the property of the Irish Church, to the amount of about 300,000l. a year. That revenue was not devoted to the support of the Catholic Church, nor, indeed, to any ecclesiastical purpose, but to the very unsatisfactory end of swelling the rent-roll of the owners of land. The right hon. Gentleman was a party to the Bill brought in by the noble Lord opposite with respect to the temporalities of the Church. Now, was not this objection then stated? I will cite it to you, as it was urged by two very high authorities. First, I shall take Mr. Lefroy (now Mr. Baron Lefroy), who for his knowledge of the law has by Her Majesty's present advisers been placed in the high station of one of the Judges of Ireland. What said he of the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman supported, as one of the Cabinet by which it was brought in? Speaking of the Protestants of Ireland he said:— If dissatisfaction and disgust should be excited among them at the passing of this measure—and such a result was sure to follow its enactment—was it not to be apprehended that the Protestants of Ireland would begin to doubt as to the utility of the Legislative Union? To those apprehensions it should be added, that this measure not only violated the Coronation Oath, but also directly violated that Act of the Legislature under which the Union of the two countries under the Crown was established. Was it too much to suppose that the Protestants of Ireland, hitherto the firmest supporters of that Union, should join with those who called for its repeal? Why, Mr. Lefroy stated his objection to that Bill as strongly as the right hon. Gentleman objects to the present Motion, and his ground was—a fair ground, according to the right hon. Gentleman's present statement—that the Vestry Cess was abolished, and that its burthen, which had pressed so hard on the owners and occupiers of land, was transferred to the property of the Church. But there was a still higher authority, from whom came the objection with respect to that Bill—the Archbishop of Canterbury. I quote the words of a Prelate, not accustomed to deal in declamation, or to use terms of exaggeration with respect to any measure he thinks it his duty to oppose, who states temperately and fairly what he thinks on the defects of a measure—who thus expressed his objections to a Bill which the right hon. Gentleman who now holds so closely to the Act of Union supported:— The principle of reform which it contained was only a subordinate consideration; that conciliation which it contemplated would fail; he objected to it because it went to apply the property of the Church to purposes for which it was not intended; he objected to it because it would give a triumph to the Catholics over the Protestants which would not tend to the harmony of that country; he objected to it because it was the most sweeping measure which had ever been applied to the Church; that it dispossessed the property of the Church from its ancient owners, and gave it to others who had no right to it whatever; and, what was more, that the Bill contained not one word to make this a special case, and to state that it should not be drawn into a precedent, and that its principle should not be applied to any other corporation in the Kingdom. Thus the Archbishop of Canterbury stated to the Bill, to which the right hon. Gentleman was a party, objections as strong as any which he or his colleagues can apply to the Motion of my hon. Friend. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the latter part of what I have read asserts, that the measure might be used as a precedent, because there was nothing in it to state that it might not be drawn into a precedent. Certainly, if there had been a word in that Bill to state that it should not be drawn into precedent, I should not have been a party to it, because, although I considered it a most useful measure, I thought it would be followed by other reforms of the Church of Ireland, which would be required in the course of years. But, if this be the case, let not the House be frightened by the denunciations of the right hon. Gentleman; let them not be alarmed at his statement, that the Act of Union will be violated. The right hon. Member for the University of Dublin, likewise used some rather harsh terms with respect to the Bill of which I have spoken during its progress. [Mr. Shaw: Only on the reduction of bishops.] The right hon. Gentleman objected to several parts of the Bill, and especially to the proposal that clergymen should not be appointed to parishes where divine service had not been performed for three years. He said, with a taunt, that if such friends of the Church had introduced such a Bill at the time of the Union, half the parochial benefices of Ireland would have been abolished at that period. Such was the way in which the right hon. Gentleman treated that Bill. But now he speaks of it as of a measure of reform brought forward by the friends of the Church. He says, that with respect to friendly measures, you have gone as far as you can go; and he urges that having done so much in the way of friendly reform, you should not listen to the enemies of the Church. It is very consoling for one who has sat on the Treasury bench, and heard much invective against that Bill, from Mr. Lefroy and his followers, to find that that Bill is treated with so much respect now, and is acknowledged to be what it was, a useful measure of reform. During the time I have sat in this House I have seen measures passed which I heard denounced as the destruction of the Consti- tution three or four times over. I have seen, according to those prophets and denouncers, the Constitution actually destroyed; and yet, within two or three years, I have heard the same persons again prophesying that the Constitution would be destroyed, though it had been proved to be as healthy and flourishing after its destruction as it had been during any part of its existence. I should expect, really—if my hon. Friend has the good fortune to obtain a Committee on this proposal of his, and if measures in accordance with his views are proposed to the House, and so modified as to receive its approbation—that in the course of a very few years we should hear the right hon. Gentleman again saying, "Do not make any further innovations in the Church; the last measure you carried was a very wholesome and friendly measure; it was adopted on the very amicable suggestion of the Member for Sheffield, but do not trust to any hand less friendly and kind than his, and leave the Church alone, according to the happy reform made in the year 1844." If such, then, is the inconsistency of the right hon. Gentleman with respect to the Act of Union, I look with much greater pleasure to the declaration made by the First Lord of the Treasury at a former period of the Session, when he said that although the Act of Union should form an element in our consideration, although there was every reason to respect the intention of that Act, yet if he were asked whether a measure proved to be right and necessary should be abandoned because the Act of Union was stated as an insuperable objection, he would say no. I think the right hon. Gentleman stated that part of the case, at least, very fairly. It may be that Mr. Pitt intended—and certainly there are speeches of his which seem to countenance the supposition—that the Protestant Church should remain as it then was, but that there should be Roman Catholic endowments. I should say, even if that were the intention of the framers of the Act, supposing there now was any prospect of improving the condition of Ireland, and healing the causes of the dissension which has long vexed and agitated that country by some new and different arrangement—I should not be deterred by anything that was to be inferred, and not directly deduced from the Act, from proceeding in that course. From the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, I think it is intended that there should be endowments for the Roman Catholic Clergy, but that no part of the property of the Protestant Church should be taken for that purpose. The noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland has likewise stated that he should have in principle no objection to give endowments to the Roman Catholics. Now, if ever that measure comes to be discussed as a substantive proposition, there are very serious objections which will then be made to any endowment for the Roman Catholic Church. Even supposing the Roman Catholic Clergy to consent to receive an endowment out of the taxes paid by the people of England and Scotland, there are objections in their feelings to make any special Roman Catholic endowments, which it might be impossible to overcome. There are objections, I say, which will be felt very strongly, to making the condition of Ireland so entirely different from that of England and Scotland. The Church of England depends on payments made by the land of England; the Church of Scotland also depends chiefly on payments by the land of Scotland; you will then propose a different system for Ireland—that there shall be a large payment from the public funds to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and that only the Protestant Church should depend on the land. Sir, I will now proceed to the question, whether the Protestant Church of Ireland, as it at present stands, so completely answers the purpose of an Established Church that you ought not to interfere with it. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, in a former speech of his, treating of this question, after stating what I have just referred to with respect to the Act of Union, said there were decisive objections in his mind to any proposition to take away the property of the Church of England and Ireland, and divert it to Roman Catholic purposes. When the right hon. Gentleman stated in detail what those objections were they seemed chiefly to turn upon this, that while the Protestant Church was ready to ally itself with the State, while it was ready to submit itself to restrictions by the State, and to accept the influence of the Crown in the disposal of its preferments, the Roman Catholic Church was not prepared to make any such concessions. Sir, I cannot think that such an objection should be paramount upon so great a subject. I can well understand that it is convenient for the State, being allied with the Church, to have an influence over its preferments, and the nomination to its Bishoprics; but I own I have considered that an Established Church rests upon other grounds; and with the permission of the House, I will endeavour to state shortly, but I hope explicitly, on what grounds I think an Established Church should rest. Sir, in the first place it is the duty of the State to give the means of religious instruction to the people—I mean with respect to those subjects in which the State itself interferes. If a man commits a breach of trust, he is sent to prison; if a man commits a theft, he is, in all probability, sent to pass his days in a foreign land; if a man commits murder, his life is forfeited. I think then, if the State does all these things, and if the State uses its authority to punish, it should endeavour likewise, by alliance or connexion with some body capable of effecting the object, to give the people the means of instruction—to give to them the means of knowing "Thou shalt do no murder,"—the means of learning the maxim, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you." I consider it to be the duty of the State, apart from any particular sect or dogma which may distinguish one denomination of Christians from another, to endeavour that means shall be afforded for that end of instruction; but then it may be said, and it is said, "Why should not the people themselves seek for a clergyman to give them instruction in the same manner as they would ask a physician to give them advice?" Sir, the two questions are not parallel. You are not bound to furnish advice for disease of the body, because diseases in themselves are accompanied with such pain and infirmity, that the patient himself readily seeks for advice. It is not so with the passions and diseases which affect the immortal part of man. It is very different when the fever of passion has the most influence—when the infirmities of self-indulgence have gained the greatest sway— then it is, very often, that the patient himself will be the least inclined to submit himself to any religious instruction. I say, then, for this reason—a reason I think to be of a high nature—the State, as a part of its duty, ought to endeavour that religious instruction shall be given to the people. But then, too, as a second reason, I should say that with respect to the nature of the religion to be taught, it is, in my mind, very often a serious impediment to the communication of that religious instruction, that the teachers of it are entirely dependent upon the people. Everything I have read—everything I have seen around me tends to show this, and, as I do not wish to refer to anything that might be considered as offensive, I will take the United States of America as an example. In the United State of America—in the slave states of America—there are teachers belonging to every religious sect, which we, in this country, have most admired for their strict adherence to their conscientious opinions, and yet we find that that accursed institution of slavery is there palliated, defended, upheld, by the teachers of religion. Why is this? It appears to me that it necessarily so results, because those teachers are dependent upon the popular voice for the maintenance of their position, and therefore that they do not as fearlessly pronounce the words of truth, that they do not as fearlessly defend the great cause of liberty and human freedom, and the subjection of us all to an Immortal Power, as they would if they felt more independent. But there are other questions, to the consideration of which I am now coming—questions which I think are of great importance, not in a religious, but in a political point of view, and therefore of inferior consequence to those I have just mentioned. The teachers of religion, except where the people are divided into a great number of religious denominations, as in the United States, but the teachers of religion were the people in general, or a great majority, are of one creed, have a vast influence. It is impossible to deny that although their character is that of teachers of religion, if they are respected, if they are looked up to, there is no subject upon which either their advice will not be asked, or upon which their opinion will not in a great degree guide the movement of the people. Therefore it is not altogether safe to have that power left in the hands of persons dependent for the means of subsistence upon the popular voice. There becomes too great a mixture of political movement and ecclesiastical influence, and the State might be placed in danger when there was a great popular movement, and the teachers of religion did not venture to counteract that movement. If there be truth in these statements, then am I right in the position I have assumed. But I now come to the great question, whether the Church of Ireland, as at present constituted, does answer the purpose for which a church establishment ought to be connected with the State? I say, whatever may be the virtues—granting that they are of the most pious of men, that their lives are most blameless and virtuous —still I say that these Protestant teachers, separated by a wide interval from the Protestant people, it is impossible they should have that influence, being in such a minority as they are among the people, which the State would desire that as Ministers of religion they should have. Then I say, that the complaint made by the First Lord of the Treasury, that the Roman Catholics would not connect themselves with the State by giving the State any title to interfere with their preferments and bishoprics, is a subordinate consideration. I say it would be of immense importance if you could make the Roman Catholic Clergy, generally speaking, with regard to a part at least of their revenues, independent of popular passions —if you could unite them to the State by their being so independent, though their political conduct was entirely free and independent, and you did not interfere with a single ecclesiastical appointment—if you left every appointment entirely unshackled, it is of importance they should have some independence of opinion. If that, then, is the case—if the Protestant Church does not answer the purpose of a Church Establishment—if it be desirable that the Roman Catholics should be placed in that situation, let us endeavour to make some steps towards such an object. Let us see how it is to be done. That at this moment you would induce the Roman Catholics to accept any part of the property of the Protestant Church, cannot perhaps be expected. You might not be able to do it. But if you say you are ready to cut down the Protestant Establishment to what the real wants of the people are, you would be making a beginning—you would be laying the ground-work for peace and harmony in that country. I understand, Sir, that there are 217 parishes in Ireland without a single Protestant. Under these circumstances, can the Protestant Clergyman perform that duty which is expected from him by the State, with regard to any one of those parishes? Whatever may be his character and conduct, can he be of any further use or benefit by his residence than any country gentleman with as much income, and of no sacred character whatever? In that case, why not cut down some of this Establishment? It was said, I believe, two centuries ago, by a person who was no bad authority—a Spanish Bishop— Let us suppose that the Church is not the whole body, I will take it to be the most valuable part of the body—say the eyes. The eyes are the most valuable part of the body, and yet no man in order to gain six eyes would part with his legs and arms. If that was said in a country where all the people are Catholics, how much more is it applicable to the case of Ireland where not above an eighth or a ninth of the people are connected with the Protestant Church? We are apt exceedingly to exaggerate what is really necessary for the support of a Church Establishment. The present Roman Catholic Church in France, where there are upwards of 30,000,000 Catholics, has about 1,500,000l. of revenue, and yet more than one-third of that is required for less than 1,000,000 of Protestants. Then the Protestant Church of France has about 150,000l. a year. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland was said by Adam Smith to be the most effective in its influence upon the moral conduct and character of the people, and it had a revenue in his time of not more than 58,000l. a year. I only allude to these things to show that much less revenue is required for a Church Establishment than we are apt to suppose; and I do not mean to imply any opinion as to what we ought to do in Committee should the House assent to my hon. Friend's Motion. The right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, was pleased to Say that my hon. Friend was not so explicit as on a former occasion in his plan with respect to the Irish Church. If, however, my hon. Friend had brought forward the same plan, I should only have said with regard to the Church, as I have said before and as I say now, when once we arrive at the discussion of a practical plan which the House is likely to adopt, then I shall discuss with you the particular merits of your plan, and endeavour to frame something myself, which I will submit to you, and ask you whether you cannot bring your views to agree with mine. But if the right hon. Gentleman supposes that all who vote for this Motion should have exactly the same plan for the Irish Church, he is mistaken. The right hon. Gentleman seems amused with the idea; yet I think, if I recollect right, the right hon. Gentleman and I contended together in a cause in which there were persons who had various plans. He and I voted together for a Committee to consider of a Reform in Parliament. When I proposed this measure for a Reform in Parliament, there were some Gentlemen who used to say with Lord Carnarvon, "Let there be a bit-by-bit Reform; we're for going on gradually." I myself proposed only the destruction of certain boroughs, with compensation to the owners of them. Others, however, went a good deal further. There were some who voted with me, who said that nothing in the way of Reform would satisfy them but Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments. Yet with these different opinions we all went out amicably and harmoniously into the lobby, because we all wished in common to see a general Reform of Parliament, and by so far acting together no one was confined to any particular plan. Therefore the House resolved itself into a Committee to consider of a Reform in the Representation of the People, and at length, with the aid of the right hon. Gentleman, we, who had been so diverse in our opinions, proposed a plan of Reform which produced this remarkable consequence, as I heard it observed by one of my then colleagues—that the Reformers were all of different opinions, but now it appeared all Reformers agreed upon one plan of Reform, whilst the Anti-Reformers were split in twenty different ways of thinking. Such is the consequence of acting together for a certain object we believe to be useful; and such, I believe, will be the result of acting together with respect to some change and some Reform to be effected in the Church of Ireland. I have heard some things stated in the course of this debate with which I do not agree. I, too, have said much with which some who support my hon. Friend's Motion will certainly differ. But as in the case of Reform in Parliament, it is necessary to take some step in the first instance, agreeing that the subject is worthy of our consideration, we must proceed at first to lay the foundation for ulterior proceedings. I will trouble the House with very little more, but before I sit down I must refer to one statement of the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to an hon. Friend of mine, the gallant Commodore (Sir Charles Napier), who spoke of our being unable to meet foreign dangers by reason of our weakness in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said, that the House ought not to be deterred by such threats. True, we might hold such language as this—we might all say that we are not to be deterred by threats; we are valiant, and nothing can frighten us. But it does so happen that history gives to us an example of men who, upon this very subject, have yielded, and yielded not to apprehensions but to danger. It is stated by no more factious and revolutionary a demagogue than Lord Grenville, who said in one of his speeches, Recollect you refused the demands of Ireland in 1779, but when all the volunteers were in arms those demands were conceded. Recollect, also, that you rejected the petition which asked that the Irish people should have the power of voting for Members of Parliament: but when the danger of a French war was impending over you, you then granted the very thing for which those petitions prayed. So said Lord Grenville, and, since he spoke, has there not been another example of the same kind? Were we not told, in 1828, that nothing would induce the then Government to grant Catholic Emancipation—that they were not to be intimidated by threats? And yet, what did we see in 1829 but a grant in full of those very demands. If that has been the case, then, upon three occasions, does it behove us to boast now of being so much more courageous than those who have gone before us— aye, than those who live in our own time? Should we not rather consider this as a subject upon which we may now deliberate without the appearance of alarm, without the character of fear—averting that which would be a serious calamity if any danger were impending, and actual discontent and almost disaffection existed in Ireland. And can you tell me that there would not be disaffection in Ireland? You tell me that the Irish people are loyal, and that you can depend upon them. Very likely. It is true they are loyal; more, they are very generous and warm hearted, but when they see you impose upon them a grievance no nation in Europe submits to — when they see what is your rule in England, what is your rule in Scotland, but that you strenuously refuse to apply that rule to Ireland—then, I ask, if the warmest loyalty may not grow cool, if the strongest attachment may not turn into enmity? The prospects of the people are to be clouded with doubt and disappointment because they are poor and uninstructed; poor, because they have not had the privileges and advantages of the people of England — uninstructed, because those means of instruction which they ought to have enjoyed from you, you are now only at the latest moment prepared to give them. If such is your condition—if you cannot find some better and more reasonable argument to justify the present state of the Church of Ireland—proceed with my hon. Friend into Committee; let us consider there all the various arguments that may be proposed to us; let us consider there what the worthy Catholic bishops and clergy of Ireland—for I will call them worthy, in spite of any taunts that may be directed against them—let us consider there, I say, what the worthy bishops and clergy of Ireland will agree to on the terms I would offer; and I would offer none that should not give them full independence, and that the laity of Ireland should enjoy every privilege that the laity of England enjoy. I say, then, go into Committee, and see if proposals made in that spirit will be accepted. Then, if they determine to accept no terms—if they show a rooted hostility to England—you may despair of an amicable termination to this subject. But until you have tried this course, until you have resorted to reasonable, just, and conciliatory measures in vain, you can have no right to say that you have done justice to the people of Ireland.

Sir R. Peel

Having in the course of the last Session, and having in the course also of the present Session at no very remote period, had the opportunity of stating fully my opinion with respect to the present condition of the Church of Ireland, it is with very great reluctance I now rise to trouble the House with any observations. Yet I have no alternative, but either to repeat that which I stated so recently, or to appear indifferent to the importance of the question, and to treat with disregard the observations which have fallen from those who have preceded me. It is one of the conditions incident to the position a Minister occupies, that he cannot refuse to adopt, in certain cases, the first of these painful alternatives; and although he may have stated upon a recent occasion his opinion on matters of the greatest importance, yet when they are again discussed, even in the same Session, he has no choice but to present himself before the House. I do not complain of the noble Lord not having in the course of his speech distinctly declared what are the specific measures he has to propose with respect to the Church of Ireland; but I do complain that he has left me entirely in doubt as to what are the principles upon which he would be inclined to proceed, if this Committee were granted: because at one time the noble Lord says he totally differs in some respects from the hon. Gentleman who brings forward this Motion—that he has heard much in the debate from which he dissents — that many have declared opinions which go much further than those he entertains; yet towards the conclusion of his speech the noble Lord intimated that the people of Ireland are subjected to grievances to which no other nation in Europe would submit. Nay, more, the noble Lord says that the Irish people are justified in their discontent; because they see one rule with respect to the Church Establishment adopted in England, and another rule with respect to the Church Establishment adopted in Scotland, but that we are not prepared to adopt the same rule with respect to Ireland. That opinion has been more than once expressed by the noble Lord, the Member for Sunderland (Lord Howick); but I never understood till to-night that it was the opinion of the noble Lord, the Member for the City of London, that Irish discontent would be justified until you had applied to Ireland the rule you have applied to England—namely, make the religion of the majority the established religion of the State. Yes, that is the length to which, by the latter part of his speech, the noble Lord would go. ["No, No."] Why, what is the meaning of that passage? I am sure it cannot be misunderstood. I have not misrepresented the speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord did distinctly say—at least I shall believe it till the noble Lord corrects me— that you have adopted a rule with respect to England, and a rule with respect to Scotland; and unless you are prepared to apply the same rule with respect to Ireland, the discontent of the Irish people will be justified. Now, what other rule can the noble Lord mean that you should apply, except it is that the religion which is adopted by the majority should be the favoured religion of the State? The hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) invites us to go into a Committee by the usual plausible and specious arguments which are addressed by those who make such propositions. He avoids distinctly intimating either the nature of his plan, or the principles upon which that plan would be established, in case his Motion should be acquiesced in. It is well for the hon. Gentleman to hold that language upon the present occasion. It might be difficult for the noble Lord and other hon. Members to vote for him, unless be held that language. But the hon. Gentleman cannot suppose that we have forgotten what are the principles which he has avowed with respect to Church Reform. He cannot suppose that we have forgotten what was the distinct proposition he made in the course of last year—what the nature of the resolutions he moved— what the distinct intimation he conveyed to us—namely, that he thought it of no use for the House to vote in favour of his resolution unless we were prepared to adopt his plan, which he then very significantly pointed out. He assumed the revenue of the Irish Church to be about 558,000l., and then the hon. Gentleman, acting with the utmost fairness and candour, said, "Don't vote for me, unless you are prepared to adopt my proposal." [Mr. Ward: Hear!] Yes, you used these words, "Those who vote for me must not be content with a Church Temporalities Act, or with 'Appropriation Clauses.'" That was the language of the hon. Gentleman, and he further said: I will intimate to you the distinct nature of the proposal which alone ought to satisfy the people of Ireland. I will divide the 558,000l. into three parts. I will allot to that Church, which is at present the Established Church, about 70,000l. a year. I will give to the Wesleyans and Presbyterians another 70,000l., and to the Roman Catholics I will give the remainder, being about 412,000l. of the present emoluments of the Established Church of Ireland. That is the course which was taken by the hon. Gentleman during the last year, and it was accompanied by a distinct intimation that we should be practising nothing but delusion unless we were prepared to adopt these practical results. Any Gentleman who recollects the discussions of last Session will remember the warning given by the hon. Member for Sheffield, that nothing was more dangerous than to practise delusion by adopting an abstract resolution, without being prepared to carry it out, by acting up to its legitimate consequences. Any man, therefore, who is not prepared to adopt the measures of the hon. Gentleman, will be fully justified in refusing to follow such a leader into a Committee. The noble Lord has made my difficulty the greater in speaking now, because he has had the goodness to remind the House of a great part of what I said on a former occasion, and he has made my task still more painful, by haying told the House what were the arguments I used three or four months since. I do not think the noble Lord did me any great injustice. Others, in the course of the debate, I think have. They affirmed that I attached little importance to the compact entered into at the Union; and that I regarded it as unimportant, unless it could be clearly shown that the maintenance of the Church Establishment was for the advantage of Ireland. I wish not now in the slightest degree to alter the language I then used. I abide by it. The opinions I then expressed are those I now entertain; but they are not the opinions which have been imputed to me by some hon. Gentlemen. I stated distinctly, that although I considered we were not to be sound irrevocably by the letter of the compact, if our conviction told us that such compact inflicted wrong or injury upon the country, yet I distinctly said and stated at the same time that this compact was a most material element for our consideration, and that nothing could have a greater tendency to lower the authority of Parliament, than for you not to keep the faith that you have pledged; that to make such a compact, and then within ten years to violate it—although I do not think that where there is a paramount necessity to depart from it, you are bound, at all hazards and risks, to abide by it, still nothing short of such a paramount necessity could warrant departing from it, and nothing, in my opinion, could be more prejudicial to the authority of Parliament, or more destructive of the influence of the acts of public men, than a departure from such a compact. I stated distinctly my opinion that there could be no national compact having a more binding force than that which was entered into at the Union. But I also stated that I would not rest my defence of the Established Church upon a ground which I thought would be to narrow that defence, namely, the exclusive ground of the compact, but that I would state why I thought, under the present circumstances, that that Church ought now to be maintained. The hon. Gentleman, the Member for Sheffield, has referred to a speech made by me in 1817, and he has referred to that speech on every occasion on which he has delivered his sentiments on the Irish Church. That speech was delivered nearly twenty-seven years ago. I then stated the apprehensions I entertained at that time, that the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities would not insure tranquillity to Ireland. I stated the ground upon which I apprehended, that after the removal of those disabilities, this question of the Church would be raised, and why I thought it was consistent with human nature that the Roman Catholics would strive to depress the Protestant Establishment and to raise their own. I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman should remind me, not merely of the opinions which I delivered in 1817, but also of the statements which were made in answer to those opinions, and which destroyed the impression that my arguments and opinions had made. The speech which I delivered in 1817 was not replied to at the time, but long afterwards. In 1821, the chosen advocate of the Roman Catholic body—the most powerful advocate that they ever had—I mean the present Lord Plunket—referred to the apprehensions I had expressed, and to the arguments I had used in 1817. Now, I do ask the hon. Gentleman, and I ask the House, to hear the counter-statements that were then made—statements which did produce a powerful impression, I admit it— on the reasoning mind of the House. They convinced the Protestant community, at least they went far to convince them, that the apprehensions I entertained were ill-founded. Mr. Plunket, in 1821, presented the Petition to the House from the Roman Catholics on the subject of their disabilities, and on that occasion he made a speech, nearly the highest in point of ability, combining more power of eloquence with power of reasoning than I believe I ever heard. He prefaced his speech by passing the highest eulogium on Mr. Grattan, at the close of which he observed— Never man had treated with more absolute disdain the hollow and faithless popularity which is obtained by subserviency, and preserved by dereliction of principle. He had never, therefore, urged the great measure which he had so cordially espoused, but on terms by which it could be reconciled to the Protestant interest of the country. Then Mr. Plunket proceeded to make a speech which contained a distinct and detailed answer to my speech of 1817, and I appeal to the House whether or not any speech was better calculated to create an impression on the mind of this country that those arguments which I had used and those apprehensions which I professed to entertain were altogether unfounded. Upon the authority of the Roman Catholic body which he then represented, he undertook to give a public pledge and assurance that the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities was compatible with the maintenance of the Protestant institutions. I refer to this that you may beware, unless you are convinced of the absolute necessity of altering the Protestant Establishment in Ireland, how you accept engagements, by showing you how engagements were at that period made which reconciled the Protestant mind of this country to the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities. Mr. Plunket said— There are many who really think, and some who affect to think, that great dangers may result from concession to the Establishment. I declare solemnly that if I could enter into that opinion—if I could see anything of peril to the Church or State—dear to my heart as are the interests of my fellow-men, I would abandon these long-asserted claims, and range myself with their opponents. Mr. Plunket then went on to say,— I must particularly apply myself to the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Peel.) He then went on to pay me some personal compliments, which I will not read, and to refer to the apprehensions which I then avowedly entertained. I will not, however, read that which is the strongest part of the speech, so anxious am I to avoid infusing any religious bitterness into the question. But, after referring to my apprehensions with respect to the Roman Catholic claims, Mr. Plunket went on to say— It is really a great consolation to me, that in resisting this argument I at the same time vindicate the Roman Catholics from a frightful imputation cast upon them and upon the Protestants. On the part of the Roman Catholics, I will be bold to say, that they harbour no principle of hostility to our Establishment. The Precedent of the Scottish Union, formerly referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, has really no application to the case; the Presbyterian religion was established at the Reformation; it was incorporated in the Act of Union, and makes part of the fundamental law of the land. The reverse is the fact with the Catholic faith; and every rational Roman Catholic feels himself no more at liberty to attempt the subversion of our Establishment, than to entertain the unworthy purpose of depriving an individual of his property. He knows that the same principle gives him and us life, liberty, and property; and he wisely prefers the Protestant Establishment in an unimpaired state, to a Roman Catholic Establishment in a subverted one. He is bound by the oath he takes, both as a man and a Christian, not only not to make the attempt, but to resist it, if made in any other quarter; and if, indeed, the oath were, as is contended, so contrary to the principles of his religion and his nature, it would be as unjustifiable in the Legislature to impose it as it would be disgraceful in a Catholic to take it. I ask the right hon. Gentleman on what authority he takes upon him, in opposition to the assertions, to the oaths of the Catholics, to brand and burn this stigma upon their foreheads. What have they said or done since the period of the Revolution to show that they mean to touch the Establishment? This is answered by the assertions, that it is no matter what they swear; let them swear what they will, the Catholics must break their oaths and our Establishment must be endangered. The right hon. Gentleman maintained, that he was authorised by his views to exclude them from this state on principles that would make them unworthy of any state. I cannot find in the large volume of human nature any principle which calls upon the Roman Catholic to subvert that state by whose laws he is protected, merely that the heads of his priests may be decorated with a mitre; and the right hon. Gentleman must excuse me if I say, that he equally mistakes the institutions of man, and the principles of human action. The alliance between Church and State depends upon principles of the highest kind, and its consequences are beneficial to any man who professes any religion. The Catholic does not indulge the chimerical notion of heaving the British constitution from its basis, that his priest may wear lawn sleeves and a mitre. If, however, he is excluded from the privileges of the state merely on account of his religion—if he is made an invidious exception in a country which permits the talents and virtues of all other men to advance them to the highest honours; and if this exception extend to his posterity—"nati natorum et gui nascentur ab illis," they will indeed have a sufficient motive to aim at the destruction of that State which heaps upon them only so heavy a load of injustice. These opinions and arguments of Mr. Plunket prevailed over the public mind. A great change was wrought in the public opinion, and in the year 1829 it was my task, acting from a paramount sense of public duty, to propose the repeal of the Roman Catholic disabilities; but I think I had a good right to conclude, from the declared opinion of the chosen champion of the Roman Catholics themselves — speaking distinctly with their authority— that the removal of those disabilities was compatible with the maintenance of the Protestant Establishment, and that they did not regard the maintenance of that Establishment in the light either of an insult or an injury. I had a right to draw this conclusion, and that it would not be just in me to persevere in acting upon my own reasoning as to the general principles of human nature against the solemn declaration of the Roman Catholics that my construction of human nature was totally erroneous, and that their most powerful and ablest Protestant champions repudiated the belief that the giving Roman Catholics relief from their disabilities would be in the slightest degree injurious to the Protestant Establishment. Then with respect to the Union, I think there cannot be a doubt that Mr. Pitt intended to assure the Protestant mind in England and Ireland that the Protestant Establishment as it then generally existed should be thereafter maintained. It is quite a different question, whether we are bound literally to adhere to the compact, even if we believe it to have been made. But the hon. Gentleman attempted to show that Mr. Pitt, at the time of the Union, never entered into any such engagement; but that, on the contrary, he had entered into an engagement to deprive the Protestant Establishment of a part of its emoluments. That proposition I entirely deny. When in 1799, Mr. Pitt brought forward the Act of Union he followed exactly the course which was adopted at the time of the Union with Scotland. In the resolution of 1799, the words are—"doctrine, discipline, and government of the Established Church." In 1800 some additional words were introduced, providing that the bishops and clergy were to sit in convocation, but this and other alterations were rejected, and the Resolutions of 1800 were in conformity with those proposed in 1799. The hon. Gentleman would not find a single word in any of the speeches of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Grenville, Mr. Dundas, Lord Castlereagh, and the other great men who took a leading part at that day and spoke from authority, which countenanced the impression that the temporalities of the Irish Church were not to be maintained. My opinion is, that Mr. Pitt did contemplate, at the time of the Union, the removal of the Catholic disabilities, and I think assurances were given to the Roman Catholics which entitled them to expect the removal. I think also that Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh contemplated a separate endowment of the Ro- man Catholic clergy, but I do not believe that they ever intended that any portion of that endowment should be derived from the emoluments of the Protestant Establishment. I have already said, that I do not think we are bound to adhere for ever to compacts, after the reason has been convinced that public evil will arise from such an adherence to them; but I think the hon. Gentleman has failed to show that there was any other compact than one to maintain the temporalities of the Irish Church. I still adhere to my opinion, that if ever public engagements were made for the maintenance of any public institution, those engagements were made at the time of the Union, when the Protestant Parliament of Ireland consented to the relinquishment of their independence as a Parliament, and I must say, as an actor in the great event of 1829, that I do believe it was the intention of the Government or of the Parliament of that day to create an impression in the Protestant mind of this country that the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities was not only compatible with the maintenance of the integrity of the Church, but that the integrity of the Church should be maintained. I therefore adhere to the opinion that those considerations should form a most important element in your decision on this question, and that it has a great tendency to shake the confidence of the people in the assurances and the engagements of a Government trying to prevail on the people to relinquish long cherished opinions, and in the decisions and good faith of Parliament, if under any other obligation than that of paramount and overpowering necessity you defeat the expectations you have raised by your assurances. But, Sir, I found my advocacy of the Church Establishment in Ireland upon other and upon higher grounds, the nature of which I will shortly state. I think it of the highest importance, looking at the public, and particularly the ecclesiastical, policy of this Empire, that there should be an Establishment of religion in each part of the United Kingdom—that is, some form of Christianity supported by, and incorporated with, the State. There are some who are adverse to Establishments. I cannot concur in their opinions. I think it of the highest public importance that there should be religious Establishments in all countries, for the sake of their re- ligious interests. There are some who suppose you would have religious peace if there were no such Establishments, and that jealousy of those Establishments excited religious bitterness and ill-will. I cannot say I entertain such opinions. And if I were to judge by recent experience, the opinions I had entertained from previous reasoning would have been confirmed by my experience; for I have seen on a late occasion, in which the cause of dispute was not between the Establishment and Dissent, but where the question simply was, whether what seemed to me certainly a mere act of justice should be done to some of those dissenting from the Establishment; and there was an opportunity of seeing how far the existence of an Establishment was the cause of those feelings of animosity and ill-will. Now, without wishing to say anything disrespectful, I must observe, that judging from the interviews I have had, and the letters I have received, there have been greater instances of religious animosity and jealousy between different classes of Dissenters than I ever saw between them and the Church. I should have thought the existence of the Church would have probably allayed these animosities and jealousies among contending sects. I should have presumed, that having been long engaged in common cause, and having recently been united against the Church and the Government upon the subject of Education, and having long been linked together in what they have termed the cause of civil and religious liberty, and having prevailed in many instances through mutual co-operation—I should have presumed that the claims of one body of Dissenters would be viewed by the other without any enmity or jealousy. I cannot, however, say that such was the case; and I repeat again, that there was more of enmity and ill-will expressed among the different classes of Dissenters, than ever existed between them and the Church. I do not believe, therefore, that the Church can be considered as the cause of religious animosity; or that its destruction would insure religious peaces If that step be granted to me, then arises the question what form of religious Establishment shall be incorporated with the State? I answer that the public policy of the country would direct a preference to a Protestant Establishment. I find that public policy has made this coun- try a Protestant State—it is the religion of the Sovereign, and the general course of our Constitutional Law, so far as religion is concerned, seems decisive in favour of selecting a Protestant Establishment. Am I at liberty to select another? I have been told in this debate that the Roman Catholics prefer total independence to a union with the State of any kind. I think you cannot have an Established Church connected with the State without that Church submitting to stringent laws permitting the; exercise of influence in its appointments. I think it would be a great evil to assign emolument to a particular form of religious worship, if the influence of the Crown over the appointment of spiritual professors was entirely destroyed. I should be sorry to see the election of Bishops perfectly independent of the influence of the Crown. I should be sorry to see the Church exercising the powers it formerly possessed in Convocation. I consider it of great importance that the spiritual authority of the Church should be restrained as it is now restrained, and made subordinate to Parliament. [A cheer.] I wish the hon. Gentleman would be good enought to cheer exactly in the place which would enable me to judge whether he assents to or dissents from my proposition. ["Hear, hear."] Then I am to presume that he is in favour of the powers of the Church in convocation? ["No."] What I am contending for is, that the Church, which has a right to certain emoluments ought to be subject to certain legislative regulations. I should object to spiritual authority exempt from all civil control. I should object to its exemption from that species of influence now exercised by the Crown. Instead of leaving the election of Bishops according to the technicalities of the law, to the Chapters of cathedrals, I prefer the existence of the influence of the Crown. But the Roman Catholics tell us distinctly that they are not prepared to permit the exercise of any such control over their spiritual appointments, therefore if there were no reasons for a decided preference of the Protestant faith, let me say that in Ireland the terms offered by the two parties are not equal. The Roman Catholics claim a perfect spiritual exemption—the right of regulating their spiritual affairs by their own intrinsic authority. What then is it they ask of us—of us, the legislators of a Protestant state? They say, "We do not want your emoluments; we do not ask a participation in them; we not only would not take them on the condition of interference, but we think that the acceptance of emoluments, even accompanied by spiritual independence, would lower the authority of the ministers of our Church. We ask you, however, not to exercise your own discretion in the matter, but to appropriate the emoluments to secular purposes." I confess that that appears to me a most unreasonable proposition. I do think, without injury to the Roman Catholics, and still more, without insult to them, that we have a perfect right to appropriate the emoluments of the Church to that form of religious faith which we think it desirable to incorporate with the State. You say, "What we contend for is religious equality." That equality is perfectly intelligible as applied to civil rights, but when you say that you contend for religious equality, I ask you to tell me what you mean? The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) is for what he calls religious equality. Would the Roman Catholics consider it religious equality to have merely a division of pecuniary emoluments, the Church of Ireland retaining the other privileges it possesses? The Church of Ireland has a right to representation in the House of Lords. Does the noble Lord contend for the exclusion of the Protestant Bishops of Ireland? If he does not, is that religious equality? Will it be religious equality unless the noble Lord gives the Roman Catholic Prelates seats in the House of Lords? Then, are the churches as well as the emoluments to be given up by the Protestants? Are the churches which have been built by the contributions of the Protestants to be handed over to the Roman Catholics? If you hand over the emoluments, it seems to me that it will be no great advantage to retain the churches. Let me tell the noble Lord that that principle of religious equality which sounds so specious, is one which will lead you to a total alteration of the ecclesiastical policy of the country; by attempting a partial alteration you will not be fulfilling your own intentions, or giving satisfaction to the Roman Catholics. But if you carry your intentions to the full extent, depend upon it that you will establish principles in Ireland which will re-act on this country, and be considered a precedent for a complete change in the ecclesiastical policy of other parts of the Empire, When the present Earl Spencer brought in the Bill for the extinction of ten Bishops of the Protestant Church in Ireland, it was hailed with delight (such was the expression) by Mr. O'Connell and other Roman Catholic gentlemen; and it was admitted by all on that side of the House that it was a most important Reform, calculated to strengthen the Church: ten years only have passed away, and although that measure was introduced, although it was a curtailment of the emoluments and a great reform of the Church, yet now, in the year 1844, stronger language is used upon the subject than ever was employed before. The Church of Ireland is now denounced as an insult and an injury to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. Now, what right have I to infer that, supposing we go into this Committee which has been moved for by the hon. Gentleman opposite, and who, ten years ago, did not use language one-tenth part so strong as that which he now uses—what right, I say, have I to infer, judging from past experience, that satisfaction and contentment will be the result? At the same time, I admit that every reform compatible with the maintenance of the Church ought to be introduced. I admit that the pluralities which now exist ought, if possible, to be abolished, and that where there is non-residence such non-residence ought to be put an end to. I am therefore unwilling to enter into the Committee, not because I am of opinion that in its present state the Irish Church is perfect—not because I am opposed to the reform of that Establishment—not because I am opposed to a greater equalization of the revenues—not because I am opposed to the increase of the emoluments of the working clergy— do not mistake me, not on that account do I refuse to enter into the Committee; bur, seeing that this is not a question of revenue—seeing that an alteration of the amount of the revenue by a deduction of 50,000l. or 100,000l. from the revenues of the Church will not give the slightest satisfaction,—thinking it infinitely safer to stand on compact—to stand on the pledge that was given by Parliament—unless the overwhelming necessity of public policy compels me to change that opinion—not being now convinced that there is that overwhelming necessity, believing that the Church is more secure, opposed as it is by a formidable hostility, in consequence of retaining the present amount of its pro- perty—thinking it desirable to have an Establishment,—thinkingthat a Protestant Establishment is entitled to the preference, believing it to be for the interest of religion that that Establishment should be maintained—although I may be willing to improve in detail its constitution, yet, after the avowal of his opinions by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Ward), knowing that he contemplates the total subversion of the Church, I will not consent to raise those delusive hopes which I should raise if I acceded to his proposal for going into Committee.

Lord J. Russell

explained. The right hon. Baronet had alluded to sentiments he had formerly expressed, and he (Lord J. Russell) might have used words liable to misapprehension; but he had never meant that there should be any supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion.

Mr. Sheil

I hoped that the First Lord of the Treasury would have spoken later in the debate; — I should then have been able to address the House, avoiding the charge of presumption in rising to speak after the right hon. Baronet. But the subject is one immediately connected with the interests of my country, and I have so often ventured to take a part in discussions of the kind, that I may, perhaps, so far hope for the indulgence of the House, as to be allowed a brief hearing. I listened with great attention to the right hon. Baronet — for I was particularly solicitous to discover whether there was any coincidence of opinion between him and the noble Secretary for Ireland, and the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, on a subject to which the two latter more than adverted. It must have struck every man in the House that the noble Lord the Minister for Ireland, at the very opening: of the debate, referred to the most important topic of the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church. He said, and of course he did not say it without purpose and without previous meditation on the effect it would produce, that he always had been, and continued to be, favourable to an endowment of the Catholic Church. His isolated opinion, considering his connection with and relation to the Government of Ireland, would have been of great value; but after him, when I found the Secretary for the Home Department, within whose peculiar jurisdiction, we were told by the Prime Minister Ire- land is, adopting the same opinion, and saying that in 1825 he had been favourable to the proposition of the noble Member for South Lancashire for giving 400,000l. a year to the Roman Catholics, I was anxious to know what course the First Lord of the Treasury would take on the question. As it must necessarily hare been a matter of deliberation in the Cabinet, I am surprised that the subject was not adverted to by the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government. If you, who have Ireland within your immediate department, are prepared to endow the Roman Catholic Church, give me leave to ask what step you intend to take in reference to the College of Maynooth. You said that the Roman Catholics would not accept an endowment, and you are surely not about to offer them what you know they will refuse, and to withhold what you know they are willing to accept? The endowment of the Roman Catholic Church may be liable to great objection, but the increased endowment of Maynooth is not liable to any. There you are only building upon a foundation deeply deposited; you feel the necessity of an increased endowment, and there are many who say either sweep it away altogether, or make it what it ought to be. Yet you are, by an indirect intimation, tendering an endowment to the Roman Catholic Clergy, which you are aware they will not take, and you are silent upon a subject where your silence is expressive indeed. Can you imagine it possible, if you were to endow the Roman Catholic Clergy, that the people of this country would submit to the payment of the Roman Catholic Clergy out of the Consolidated Fund, when there exists a fund in Ireland amply sufficient and applicable to all the purposes of religion? You propose to make the Roman Catholic Church an institution, to the payment of which the funds of the Protestant Church necessarily become applicable. Do you think that when you endow the Roman Catholic Church, you can do it without making large deductions from the revenues of the Protestant Church? Do you mean to lay a tax on Protestant Irish landlords for the purpose? You have just compelled them to pay Poor-rates, and now you would drive them to make contributions for the maintenance of what they consider an idolatrous Church. I think that the right hon. Baronet is involving himself in greater difficulties—in a maze of more complicated embarrassments — by thus consenting to the hypothetical endowment of the Roman Catholic Church, than by consenting to a well proportioned diminution of the superfluous revenues of the Protestant Church. The right hon. Baronet considers it contrary to the Act of Union to diminish the revenues of the Protestant Church in Ireland; but, as has been already suggested, his protestations and his practice are at variance. If so, how could he consent to abolish Church-rates in Ireland? How could you consent to the confiscation of the one-fourth of the tithes in Ireland? How could you consent to the Bill of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Hardinge)? True it is, that the right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham) was not a Member of the Administration of 1835; neither he nor the noble Lord were Members of that Administration. At that period they thought it was incompatible with their political consistency to unite with those whom they had opposed for so many years; yet, although they Were not parties to the introduction of that Bill, they are now conjoined in office with the men from whom that proposition originated. [Lord Stanley: We supported it then.] Then everything I want is conceded; You agreed that 25 per cent. should be abstracted from this Church, and should not be applied to the public, but to be deposited in the coffers of the Irish landlords. ["No, no."] Is not that the case? Every one knows that 25 per cent. were taken from the Church and given to the landlords. What name shall be given to that change? Shall I call it confiscation? [Mr. Shaw: No; an allowance.] That is a distinction worthy of "the schools" and of a scholastic doctrine in which I am not versed. [Mr. Shaw: I call it allowance.] I am no match for the right hon. Gentleman in these collegiate sophistications. I call it confiscation—he calls it allowance; but what do the parsons who lost the 25 per cent. call it? If a parson, who received 100l. a year before the Tithe Act passed, received now only 75l. [Mr. Shaw: That is not the case.] I know not whether I give it the right name; whatever name you give it—"By any other name it will smell as sweet." It will be as sweet to the landlords, and as offensive to the parsons; and it is clear that if the argument of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department were correct with respect to the Act of Union, that Act was then violated as much as it was by any proposition now made by his hon. Friend. It may be a question of degree, but as to principle the two measures are identical. There is only one part of the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department which I heard with pain; and I must say, that the pain was much more on his account than on my own. The rest of his speech was characterised by moderation, and by a deference to the feelings of the country; but he did refer to one topic, which was generally resorted to at the time when the "No Popery" cry was wildest in this country, and which he might have judiciously omitted; he said, that if Church property was touched, the whole property of the Country would be in danger, that the Act of Settlement was set at nought, and that claims would be made to the forfeited estates. Does not the right hon. Baronet here fall into the very error which he blamed in my hon. Friend the Member for Marylebone (Sir C. Napier) when my hon. Friend said that we should take care of the power of France lest she should engage in a formidable enterprise with respect to Ireland—the right hon. Baronet, relapsing into his former habits of First Lord of the Admiralty, took the gallant Commodore to task, and told him, he could not help thinking that he ought to have avoided the excitement of all false alarm. He knows the ground on which Catholic Emancipation was long resisted in Ireland; he knows that the resistance was always connected with territorial fear, and the right hon. Baronet ought to have disdained to appeal to that fear; be ought not — if I may use the expression—to have raised the ghost of Cromwell to mount guard over the Established Church. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department will smile —and there is something peculiarly significant in his smile—when I refer to an extract mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. I hold in my hand the pamphlet to which my hon. Friend alluded, but from which he made no extract. He ought to have made it. I shall refer only to the last few lines. It is a pamphlet of much value, not only for the sentiments contained in it, but as expressing the views of an impartial and disinterested inquirer. It is written by M. Camille Cafour, a Genevese gentleman, and he says:— Sir Robert Peel, I am sure, will pursue the work of regenerating the hierarchy; his inarch will be measured and prudent, perhaps, even exceedingly slow. I fear I do not express all the force of the sentence by the translation—the words are 'un excessive longue tour;'" but "it will be constant and nothing will make him recede. In suggesting the mode, I will content myself by referring to the generous and liberal conduct of Sir Robert Peel towards Canada; that which he has done towards that distant Colony," and here I invite the especial attention of the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies—"he will do for Ireland. What have you done for that distant Colony? I pass from one citation to another. I hold in my hand the Life of Lord Sydenham, a book of great interest and of conspicuous talent, written by his brother, Mr. Scrope. It contains at p. 168 a letter from which I will take an extract: it was written to my noble Friend, the Member for the city of London, in which Lord Sydenham says:— The clergy reserves have been and are the great overwhelming grievance—the root of all the troubles of the province—the cause of the rebellion—the never-failing watch-word at the hustings—the perpetual source of discord, strife, and hatred. He then speaks of the Bill he had introduced, and proceeds:—"If the Bill is carried"—which received the assent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, of the right hon. Baronet, and of the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies, of everybody except the right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Exeter, in whose speech the words spoliation and robbery, and sacrilege, were piously and copiously interspersed. If it is really carried, it is the greatest work that ever has been done in this country, and will be of more solid advantage to it than all the loans and all the troops you can make or send. It is worth ten Unions, and was ten times more difficult. And he then proceeds:— If you attempt to give the Church of England any supremacy, five-sixths of the province will never submit to it, and you will have a sound, loyal, and stirring population united against you. Now, let us see whether the clergy reserves rest on a different footing than the Established Church in Ireland. In the Act of Union, what was said about "tem- poralities?" You give that a construction it does not bear on the face of it. The word "temporalities" was not introduced into the Act of Union by its framers, and they would have introduced it if they had so intended. You have recourse, however, to the Act of the Union with Scotland; you weigh the words in the nicest balance; you come by a forensic rather than a legislative process to a decision; and you conclude that "temporalities" was intended to be inserted. But take the case of the clergy reserves. There is no doubt they apply exclusively to temporalities. A certain portion of the property of Canada, by the Act of 1781, was exclusively given for the promotion and maintenance of the Protestant religion. There was a distinct legislative appropriation of the property of Canada. For upwards of 20 years any change in that appropriation was resisted, but under the force of imperative necessity a different allocation of property has been made. Under these circumstances, where is the substantial distinction to be drawn in the views of the policy pursued towards Canada in respect to the clergy reserves, and the policy towards Ireland with reference to Church temporalities? It was by views of policy, and not by catching at words and syllables, that you legislated for Canada; and where is the distinction between the clergy reserves and the Irish Church? I have quoted too much, perhaps, already, but I cannot refrain from referring to another document, written by a late Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the Marquess of Anglesea, to Earl Grey, in 1833, when the noble Lord, the present Secretary for the Colonies was Secretary for Ireland, and I think you will find a coincidence in the language of Lord Sydenham and Lord Anglesea of a most remarkable kind:— First and foremost," says Lord Anglesea, "in importance in its immediate pressure is the question of a reform in the Protestant Church of Ireland, an establishment which at all times has exceeded the religious wants of the Protestant population. Hitherto it has been upheld by the State merely on the ground of preserving the temporal use of consolidating the connection between the two countries. But this service is no longer performed—instead of strengthening the connection it weakens it; and a Government pledged to maintain that establishment must be brought into constant collision with public opinion, and the prejudices of the Irish people. It is impossible for me not to see, however anxious and attached I am to the Protestant Church, and however much I am against any violent changes in it—it is impossible for me not to see resistance to its arbitrary claims in a deep-rooted and wide-spread conviction in the minds of the Irish community. The condition of the establishment in its present splendour is not to be justified by the state of the country. The time has arrived for such just and practical reform as may eventually place at the disposal of the State a national fund, to be applied, if necessary, to national purposes. Any man who gives the due attention to this document to which it is entitled, with respect to the Irish Church, must come to the conclusion to which Lord Sydenham arrived as to the clergy reserves. I concur in the sentiments of Lord Anglesea, whose heart was full of love for Ireland. I concur in the sentiments expressed by him in 1833, and hope, when I express my confidence in that sentiment, I shall not be guilty of any departure from any moral obligation. We do not ask for the subversion of the Established Church. We ask not for its subversion, but for a reduction of its revenues. I, for one, never asked for anything else, and I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite on consideration will see that the opinions which I have stated, have been conveyed in language perfectly in accordance with the rules of this House, and in terms inoffensive to every one here. I hope I am very seldom betrayed, however warm my temperament may be, into allowing anything to pass my lips which should deserve the interruption I have received. I was saying that I, for one, ask only for a modification of the Established Church. It is an institution long established; and to sweep it suddenly away, to leave no trace of it behind, appears to me in the highest degree impolitic, and I believe it to be utterly impracticable. But at the same time I believe it to be possible to introduce such salutary reforms as might make the Church what it ought to be, and remove a great cause of exasperation to the people. Our complaint is, that you have an establishment greatly disproportionate to your wants; we complain of your sinecurism. We make the complaint put so forcibly by the hon. Member for Marylebone. We do not object that a Protestant Clergyman, a gentleman by birth and education, should be paid as a gentleman by birth and education Ought to be paid; but, if the Church is to be associated with the State, I extend to the Church the prin- ciple which applies to the State, and think that sinecures ought to be abolished. I think you have more Bishops than you require. By the Temporalities Act, the Government, with consent of all parties in the State, made a great change in the establishment. Before that Act there were twenty Bishoprics, by it they were reduced to ten, and now the question arises whether that reduction was sufficient. May not six Bishops answer every purpose to be attained by the episcopacy of Ireland? The next question is this—Are not the Bishops too highly paid? In this country the Ecclesiastical Commission decided that 5,000l. a-year was an adequate sum for the payment of an episcopal functionary in this country. Does not the payment of the Bishops of Ireland exceed this in many instances? The Archbishop of Armagh makes a return of his income at 17,000l. a-year; the net income he says is 14,000l. a-year; and, by the by, the distinction between the net and gross revenue is a very nice one, and it is not one made in the calculation of the territorial estates of most properties; however he says, it is 14,000l. a-year net. His successor is to have 10,000l. a-year. Why should the Archbishop of Armagh be paid more than the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Why should he be paid more than the Chief Justice? Why should any Bishop in the land be paid more than a Judge? Look at the income of the Bishop of Derry. It amounted to 14,000l. a-year. He has agreed to give up 4,000l.; and, if his successor was to give up 6,000l., the next Bishop of Derry would have 8,000l. a-year, which exceeded the income of the Chief Justice. The English Bishops, I believe, are to receive from 4,500l. to 5,000l. a-year. Why, in the name of common consistency, in a country containing 8,000,000 Catholics and 800,000 Protestants, should the Bishops receive more than in a Protestant country? And when I press these facts upon you, you interrupt me. I do not intend it to be offensive; but I am not guilty, surely, of any impropriety, when I state that fact, that your Bishops are paid, even under your Church Temporalites Act, more than is considered a sufficient stipend in this great Protestant country. The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Dublin, stated that if the incomes of the Clergy were divided amongst them all— the beneficed Clergy—it would amount to only 200l. a-year each. But he must remark what our case is. We contend that the number of our Clergy ought to be diminished, because where there are no congregations the benefices ought to be suppressed. You take the entire Protestant Clergy as a divisor, and the Church property as a dividend, and tell us that a certain small quotient is the result; but diminish the divisor (that is, reduce the number of the Clergy), and the quotient will be proportionally increased. You should diminish the number of the Clergy, and having done so, obtain a surplus, which ought to be applicable to such purposes as Parliament may think fit. At this late hour I will not go into this general question, which has been so much discussed; but there is one point I cannot refrain from presenting to the attention of the House. The right hon. Secretary for the Home Department has adverted to education in Ireland. I think the subject of education ought to have been avoided by the right hon. Gentleman. What course was taken in Ireland with respect to education, and what course in England? You said that in England the educational funds must be placed under the supervision of the Church, and you abandoned your Factories Bill last year. But what course did you take in Ireland? In spite of the opposition of the Established Church and nearly all the Protestants of Ireland, you took from the Church in that country that which it regarded as its peculiar prerogative, and declared it incapable of administering the funds for national education, and thereby pronounced a stronger condemnation of it than any that has been passed on this side. In Ireland, you stripped the Church of the authority which it formerly possessed in this respect, and you recently went so far, if the representations which have so frequently been made are well founded, as to intimate that no favour should be shown to any of the clergy who did not declare their adhesion to the national system of education. I take this to be a clear and manifest distinction between the two cases. The right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham) was pleased to advert to the Registration Bill which has been introduced by the Government. I confess I do not think that it is relevant to the subject matter of the present debate. The right hon. Baronet seemed to suggest that the difficulty in the progress of this, as of other measures connected with Ireland, rested on the state of the Irish Church—in short that the present state of the Establishment was the source of every difficulty in the way of legislation with regard to Ireland. What has taken place on the subject? When we were in power, we were taunted again and again by the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies on the subject of an Irish Registration Bill, and he at length undertook the office of premature legislation on the subject. When, however, Gentlemen opposite came into office, they were silent for the first year as to any measure of the kind. What took place in the second year? The noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire reported to the House from a certain Committee, that they were unanimously of opinion, that a new Registration Bill was essential to Ireland. Nothing was then done; but the right hon. Baronet announced that a measure of the kind should be brought forward at an early period of the present Session. The promised measure was brought in, and had since then been allowed to remain on the Table, and whenever any allusion is made to its future progress, it only produces a burst of laughter, as the right hon. Baronet has constantly said that there are peculiar difficulties in its way. It has at length however been agreed to by the right hon. Baronet on the part of the Government, that it should be read a second time, and this has been postponed until the 1st of July; but could the right hon. Gentleman say that there was any probability whatever that they could get into Committee with it during the present Session. These postponements clearly arise from the fear that a liberal Registration Bill will be fatal to the Irish Church. The Established Church is the source of every difficulty connected with the Government of Ireland. You have resisted the voice of the Irish people, and have refused to listen to their prayers and remonstrances; but events will arise which will render it necessary for you to call upon the Legislature for a new appropriation of the Irish Church Revenues. As in Canada, you will find it again requisite to deal with the Church Establishment. You have acted in Canada on this subject in conformity with the feelings of the people, and you have been rewarded with their attachment, and you are likely to make that country prosperous. Would not the same course with regard to Ireland produce the same results? But if you do not, the time will come, when looking back to your political life, you will lament that the opportunity of winning a perpetual fame by rendering your country an incalculable service, have been omitted by you.

Sir R. H. Inglis

rose amidst loud cries of "hear" and "divide." The hon. Baronet said, that he wished merely to state that he should oppose the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield, because he believed that the Protestant Church of Ireland held the truth committed to us by a gracious Providence. The hon. Gentleman opposite said he only wanted the money of the Church. That was language more fitted for the road than this House.

Mr. H. G. Ward

replied: the right hon. Gentleman opposite had alluded to his (Mr. Ward's) speech last year. The fact was, that speech contained no plan of operation. He had merely expressed his opinion, which he still retained, that this case of the Church of Ireland was one which ought to be investigated. He thought that no man's views upon the subject should be held conclusive; he thought that there ought to be forbearance on both sides, and therefore he wished for the appointment of a Committee to deliberate on the subject.

The House divided on the Question, "That this House do resolve itself into a Committee upon the present state of the Temporalities of the Church of Ireland."—Ayes 179; Noes 274: Majority

List of the AYES.
Aglionby, H. A.	Brocklehurst, J.
Aldam, W.	Brotherton, J.
Archbold, R.	Browne, R. D.
Armstrong, Sir A.	Buller, C.
Bannerman, A.	Buller, E.
Barclay, P.	Busfield, W.
Baring, rt. hn. F. T.	Butler, P. S.
Barnard, E. G.	Byng, G.
Barron, Sir H. W.	Byng, rt. hon. G. S.
Bellew, R. M.	Carew, hon. R. S.
Berkeley, hon. C.	Cavendish, hn. C. C.
Berkeley, hon. Capt.	Cavendish, hn. G. H.
Berkeley, hon. H. F.	Chapman, B.
Bernal, Capt.	Clay, Sir W.
Blake, M.	Clements, Visct.
Blewitt, R. J.	Clive, E. B.
Bouverie, hon. E. P.	Colborne, hn. W. N. R.
Bowring, Dr.	Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Collett, J.	Mitchell, T. A.
Collins, W.	Morris, D.
Cowper, hon. W. F.	Muntz, G. F.
Craig, W. G.	Murphy, F. S.
Curteis, H, B.	Murray, C. R. S.
Dalmeny, Lord	Murray, A.
Dalrymple, Capt.	Napier, Sir C.
Dawson, hon. T. V.	Norreys, Sir J.
Denison, W. J.	O'Brien, J.
Denison, J. E.	O'Connell, M.
Dennistoun, J.	O'Connell, M. J.
D'Eyncourt, rt. hn. C. T.	O'Conor, Don
Duff, J.	O'Ferrall, R. M.
Duncan, Visct.	Ogle, S. C. H.
Duncan, G.	Ord, W.
Dundas, Adm.	Paget, Lord A.
Dundas, F.	Palmerston, Vist.
Dundas, D.	Parker, J.
Dundas, hon. J. C.	Pattison, J.
Easthope, Sir J.	Pechell, Capt.
Ebrington, Visct.	Philipps, G. R.
Ellice, rt. hon. E.	Philips, M.
Ellice, E.	Plumridge, Capt.
Elphinstone, H.	Pulsford, R.
Evans, W.	Rawdon, Col.
Ewart, W.	Redington, T. N.
Fielden, J.	Ricardo, J. L.
Ferguson, Col.	Rice, E. R.
Fitzroy, Lord C.	Roebuck, J. A.
Fitzwilliam, hn. G. W.	Ross, D. R.
Forster, M.	Rous, hon. Capt.
Fox, C. R.	Russell, Lord J.
Gisborne, T.	Russell, Lord E.
Gore, hon. R.	Scrope, G. P.
Granger, T. C.	Seale, Sir J. H.
Grey, rt. hn. Sir G.	Seymour, Lord
Grosvenor, Lord R.	Sheil, rt. hon. R. L.
Guest, Sir J.	Shelburne, Earl of
Hall, Sir B.	Smith, B.
Hallyburton, Lord J. F.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
Hastie, A.	Stanley, hon. W. O.
Hawes, B.	Stansfield, W. R. C.
Hobhouse, rt. hn. Sir J.	Station, W. H.
Hollond, R.	Stewart, P. M.
Horsman, E.	Stuart, Lord J.
Howard, hn. C. W. G.	Stuart, W. V.
Howard, hon. J. K.	Stock, Mr. Serj.
Howick, Visct.	Strickland, Sir G.
Hume, J.	Strutt, E.
Humphery, Ald.	Talbot, C. R. M.
Hutt, W.	Tancred, H. W.
Jervis, J.	Thornely, T.
Johnson, Gen.	Tollemache, hn. F. J.
Labouchere, rt. hn. H.	Towneley, J.
Langston, J. H.	Trelawny, J. S.
Layard, Capt.	Tufnell, H.
Leader, J. T.	Vane, Lord H.
Macaulay, rt. hn. T. B.	Villiers, hon. C.
Maher, N.	Vivian, J. H.
Mangles, R. D.	Vivian, hon. Capt.
Marjoribanks, S.	Wakley, T.
Marshall, W.	Walker, R.
Marsland, H.	Wall, C. B.
Martin, J.	Wallace, R.
Matheson, J.	Warburton, H.
Maule, rt. hon. F.	Watson, W. H.
Mitcalfe, H.	Wawn, J. T.

Wemyss, Capt.	Wrightson, W. B.
Wilde, Sir T.	Wyse, T.
Williams, W.	Yorke, H. R.
Wilshere, W.	TELLERS.
Wood, C.	Ward, H. G.
Worsley, Lord	Hill, Lord M.

List of the NOES.
Acland, Sir T. D.	Clive, Visct.
Acland, T. D.	Clive, hon. R. H.
A'Court, Capt.	Cockburn, rt. hn. Sir G.
Acton, Col.	Codrington, Sir W.
Adare, Visct.	Collett, W. R.
Adderley, C. B.	Colquhoun, J, C.
Alford, Visct.	Colvile, C. R.
Allix, J. P.	Compton, H. C.
Antrobus, E.	Copeland, Ald.
Arbuthnott, hon. H.	Corry, rt. hon. H.
Archdall, Capt. M.	Courtenay, Lord
Arkwright, G.	Cresswell, B.
Ashley, Lord	Cripps, W.
Astell, W.	Darby, G.
Bagge, W.	Dawnay, hon. W. H.
Bailey, J.	Denison, E. B.
Baillie, Col.	Dick, Q.
Baillie, H. J.	Dickinson, F. H.
Baird, W.	Dodd, G.
Balfour, J. M.	Douglas, Sir H.
Baring, hon. W. B.	Douglas, Sir C. E.
Baring, T.	Douglas, J. D. S.
Barrington, Visct.	Douro, Marq. of
Baskerville, T. B. M.	Dowdeswell, W.
Bateson, T.	Drummond, H. H.
Beckett, W.	Duncombe, hon. A.
Bentinck, Lord G.	Duncombe, hon. O.
Blackburne, J.I.	Du Pre, C. G.
Blackstone, W. S.	East, J. B.
Blakemore, R.	Egerton, W. T.
Bodkin, W. H.	Egerton, Sir P.
Boldero, H. G.	Eliot, Lord
Borthwick, P.	Emlyn, Visct.
Botfield, B.	Entwisle, W.
Bowles, Adm.	Escott, B.
Bradshaw, J.	Estcourt, T. G. B.
Bramston, T. W.	Farnham, E. B.
Brisco, M.	Fellowes, E.
Broadley, H.	Ferguson, Sir R. A.
Brooke, Sir A. B.	Filmer, Sir E.
Brownrigg, J. S.	Fitzmaurice, hon. W.
Bruce, Lord E.	Flower, Sir J.
Bruges, W. H. L.	Forbes, W.
Buck, L. W.	Forester, hn. G. C. W.
Buckley, E.	Forman, T, S.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Fox, S. L.
Burrell, Sir C. M.	Fremantle, rt. hn. Sir T.
Campbell, Sir H.	Gaskell, J. Milnes
Campbell, J. H.	Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.
Cardwell, E.	Gladstone, Capt.
Castlereagh, Visct.	Glynne, Sir S. R.
Charteris, hon. F.	Godson, R.
Chelsea, Visct.	Gordon, hon. Capt.
Chetwode, Sir J.	Gore, M.
Cholmondeley, hn. H.	Gore, W. O.
Christopher. R. A.	Gore, W. R. O.
Chute, W.L.W.	Goring, C.
Clayton, R. R.	Goulburn, rt. hon. H.
Clerk, Sir G.	Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.

Granby, Marq. of	Marsham, Visct.
Greenall, P.	Martin, C W.
Greene, T.	Masterman, J:
Gregory, W. H.	Maxwell, hn, J. P.
Grimstone, Visct.	Meynell, Capt.
Grogan, E.	Mildmay, H. St. J.
Hale, R. B.	Miles, W.
Halford, Sir H.	Mordaunt, Sir J.
Hamilton, C. J. B.	Morgan, O.
Hamilton, G. A.	Mundy, E. M.
Hamilton, Lord C.	Neeld, J.
Hanmer, Sir J.	Neeld, J.
Harcourt, G. G.	Neville, R.
Hardy, J.	Newdegate, C. N.
Harris, hon. Capt.	Newport, Visct.
Heathcote, Sir W.	Newry, Visct.
Heneage, G. H. W.	Nicholl, rt. hon. J.
Henley, J. W.	Norreys, Lord
Henniker, Lord	O'Brien, A. S.
Hepburn, Sir T. B.	Oswald, A.
Herbert, hon. S.	Owen, Sir J.
Hodson, F.	Palmer, R.
Hodgson, R.	Palmer, G.
Hogg, J. W.	Patten, J. W.
Hope, hon. C.	Peel, rt. hn. Sir R.
Hope, A.	Peel, J.
Hope, G. W.	Pennant, hon. Col.
Hornby, J.	Pigot, Sir R.
Hotham, Lord	Polhill, F.
Hughes, W. B.	Pollington, Visct.
Hussey, A.	Praed, W. T.
Hussey, T.	Pringle, A.
Ingestrie, Visct.	Pusey, P.
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Rashleigh, W.
James, Sir W. C.	Repton, G. W. J.
Jermyn, Earl	Richards, R.
Jocelyn, Visct.	Rolleston, Col.
Johnstone, Sir J.	Round, C. G.
Johnstone, H.	Round, J.
Jones, Capt.	Rushbrooke, Col.
Kelly, F.	Russell, C.
Kemble, H.	Russell, J. D. W.
Ker, D. S.	Ryder, hon. G. D.
Kirk, P.	Sanderson, R.
Knatchbull, rt. hn. Sir E.	Sandon, Visct.
Knight, H. G.	Seymour, Sir H. B.
Knight, F, W.	Shaw, rt. hon. F.
Law, hon. C. E.	Sheppard, T.
Lawson, A.	Shirley, E. P.
Lefroy, A.	Sibthorp, Col.
Legh, G. C.	Smith, A.
Lennox, Lord A.	Smyth, Sir H.
Leslie, C. P.	Smollett, A.
Liddell, hon. H. T.	Somerset, Lord G.
Lincoln, Earl of	Sotheron, T. H. S.
Lockhart, W.	Stanley, Lord
Lopes, Sir R.	Stanley, E.
Lowther, hon. Col.	Stewart, J.
Lygon, hon. Gen.	Stuart, H.
McGeachy, F. A.	Sturt, H. C.
Mackenzie, W. F.	Sutton, hon. H. M.
Mackinnon, W. A.	Taylor, E.
McNeill, D.	Tennent, J, E.
Mahon, Visct.	Thesiger, Sir F.
Mainwaring, T.	Thompson, Mr. Ald.
Manners, Lord C. S.	Thornhill, G.
Manners, Lord J.	Tollemache, J.

Tomline, G.	Welby, G. E.
Trench, Sir F. W.	Whitmore, T. C.
Trevor, hon. G. R.	Williams, T. P.
Trollope, Sir J.	Wodehouse, E.
Trotter, J.	Wortley, hn. J. S.
Turnor, C.	Wortley, hn. J. S.
Verner, Col.	Wynn, rt. hn. C. W. W.
Vernon, G. H.	Wynn, Sir W. W.
Vesey, hon. T.	Yorke, hon. E. T.
Vivian, J. E.	TELLERS.
Waddington, H. S.	Young, J.
Walsh, Sir J. B.	Baring, H.

House adjourned at half-past one o'clock.