§ Lord Monteagle,in moving for,
A copy of the instrument appointing the present Archdeacon of Armagh; and a copy of any orders or acts of privy council in Ireland, for disuniting the parishes forming the archdeaconry of Armagh; also copies of any memorials or letters which may have been addressed to the Irish government on the subject of the severance of the union of parishes forming the archdeaconry of Armagh, and of the answers thereto; and also return of any union of parishes in Ireland disunited under 3rd and 4th Will. 4,c. 37,s. 124.said, that the question which he meant to submit involved a large and important principle—no less than the rule by which Government meant to dispense Church patronage in Ireland. No question relative to Ireland had been more discussed in Parliament than the Union of Sees. In early times, when the Church was governed more on a secular than on an ecclesiastical principle, the union of large masses of church benefices was much more frequent than could now be attempted. So long ago as the time of Bishop Bedell a desire was manifested to abolish pluralities. That right reverend person said,It is necessary to diminish pluralities, as far as it can be done, in the Irish Church. I find myself, however, reproving pluralities in others, whilst I continue to be a pluralist myself. I object to a clergyman who holds two benefices, but do I not, at the same time possess a second bishopric myself!1550 He resigned his second bishopric, because he considered the retention of it to be inconsistent with his principles, and impolitic as it regarded the interests of the Church. Sir J. Newport said, April 14, 1825,The Primate of Ireland had stated, in papers laid before the House, that the union of parishes might rank amongst the greatest defects of the system by which it was governed.
Mr. Goulburnalso said, February 16,1824,
With respect to pluralities, the subject has not escaped the Primate of Ireland, who fully felt the inconvenience of pluralities in every instance, and he laid down a rule that when the union was dissoluble, the occupant was not allowed to take any other.
Sir John Newportmoved a resolution on March 4, 1830, to the effect,
Pluralities and unions had been introduced, to the great injury of the most deserving.
Lord F. L. Gower, ,moved as an amendment,
For a commission to inquire into the state of parochial benefices, with the view to ascertain how far the the same consist of separate or united parishes, and to report, in case of unions, on the possibility or fitness of dissolving such unions at any future time.The commission was then appointedTo report in the case of unions the authority under which they have been effected, the state thereof, and the possibility or fitness of dissolving such unions.And their report refers to 5th Geo. 4th, c. 80, for diocese of Down and Connor, and states that,Following this precedent, we have accordingly, in the like cases which have come under our observation, recommended a similar disappropriation, which appears to us to have the twofold recommendation of providing for the officiating and laborious clergy and doing away with sinecure benefices. This should be done even where there is no church in the separate dioceses, and temporary provision made for divine worship. Of 110 unions in Armagh, sixty-one recommended to be dissolved.In July 1832, Mr. Goulburn said,The report states that the want of sufficient income to maintain the clergymen upon some livings was caused by the vicarial and rectorial tithes being appropriated to different incumbents, and they recommended the disappropriation of such tithes, with the two-fold 1551 object of making a better provision for the resident clergy and doing away the sinecures of those who were not resident. Livings produced 94 l., 99 l., 100 l.; rectorial tithes, 1,600l. a-year; Down parish, 1,200l. It was distinctly recommended that at the next avoidance of the deanery each curate should become rector.
Mr. Stanleythen pledged himself to a bill in the following Session. Accordingly, on February 22, 1833, Mr. Goul-burn asked Mr. Stanley,
Whether it was his intention to give effect to the recommendation of the commissioners respecting the deaneries of Down and Raphoe, and when a bill would be introduced.
Mr. Stanleystated,
That a measure would be brought forward, the delay being from an expectation that a clause might be introduced into the Church Temporalities Act.Ultimately the 3d and 4th Will. 4th, c. 37 was agreed to. It recited: —Sec. 124. And whereas several parishes, or the tithes and glebes thereof, are appropriated or united to certain archbishoprics, bishoprics, deaneries, and archdeaconries, and it is expedient that the same should be disappropriated, disunited, and divested out of such archbishoprics, bishoprics, archdeaconries, &c.; and vested in the respective vicars or curates discharging the duties of the several parishes, &c. &c. Be it enacted, that it shall and may be lawful for the Lord-lieutenant and his Majesty's council, in the case of the deaneries of Down and Raphoe, when they shall think fit, and in the case of any archbishopric, &c, by and with the consent of such archbishop, &c, or whensoever such archbishopric, bishopric, deanery, or archdeaconry, shall become vacant, to disappropriate any rectory, vicarage, tithes, &c, from such archbishopric, &c, so that the vicarage or perpetual curacy shall form a separate parish. Proviso where the vicarage, &c, has been already augmented.In 1834, a vacancy occurred in the Deanery of Down, when Mr. Goulbum asked,Whether any order in council had issued for divesting the present Dean of Down and Raphoe of the tithes which belong to those deaneries.
Mr. Littletonreplied,
I believe no order has as yet been issued; the whole matter is still in train.Then, on March 11, 1834, Mr. Goulbum moved,An address to the Crown, to carry into effect the recommendation of the commisson in respect of the Deanery of Down and Raphoe.1552 He said on that occasion,I am called on by the duty I owe to the Established Church and to my own character, not to shrink from this question, giving to eleven separate parishes adequately paid resident incumbents, instead of suffering them to remain, as at present, united for ecclesiastical purposes, but imperfectly cared for as regards the cure of souls. When the Duke of Wellington was First Minister, it was proposed by the Government of that day no longer to leave the question of these unions to be decided by the separate merits of each, to be provided for by a separate bill, but to take a general view of the whole question; and for that purpose a commission was appointed consisting of a number of prelates and the first legal authorities. In their report the commissioners went into a general review of the evils which arose from the establishment of the unions of parishes in Ireland, and they suggested a mode by which they thought those evils might be, if not altogether averted, at least in a great measure alleviated. I never entertained the least doubt that the King's Government, of whosoever it might be composed, would feel an anxiety to give immediate effect to the recommendation it contained, and I did not suppose the new dean accepted his appointment on any other terms or conditions than those of adopting the recommendation of the report, and till that recommendation could be carried into effect, of voluntarily acting on its suggestions. More than nine months have passed since the passing of the act which put it in the power of Ministers to proceed at once to the correction of the abuses in the Church. In one of the parishes, there is a growing town, with a considerable Protestant population—Strangford. I say, that every day during which there has been a delay in providing for the ministers of those several parishes, the adequate income to enable them to discharge the duty they owe their parishioners of being resident among them, every day's delay is of serious injury to the cause of the Protestant Church in that part of the country, and to the cause of the Protestant Church generally.Bearing in mind the principles here laid down, it was inconceivable that the Government should have departed from them in the present case. A vacancy was created, not by the death of the party, but by the act of the Government in the promotion of the Archdeacon of Armagh to the bishopric of Meath. In place of dividing the livings consequent on that change, both had been given to one gentleman. It might be said that the two parishes were unimportant, that there were few Protestants, and that the income was so small to be below the acceptance of a clergyman. The facts were directly 1553 opposed to the hypothesis suggested. The two parishes he alluded to were Currental and Aghaloo. The following was an account of their dimensions, population, and the tithes which belonged to them.He should only state in addition, from the ecclesiastical report on the Archdeaconry of Armagh.
Dimensions:—Currental 4 ½ Irish miles by 3 ½ Aghaloo 5 ½ Irish miles by 4 ½ The whole union 9 Irish miles by 4 3/4 Towns:—Currental—Aughacloy 1,672 inhabitant Aghaloo—Caledon 857inhabitant 11,500 acres in the union. Currental. Aglialoo. Population:—Established Church 1,492 2,831 Roman Catholic 1,947 3,491 Presbyterian 2,314 4,265 Other Sects 24 58 5,753 10,615 Churches, in both parishes, five miles apart. Income:—Currental—Tithes £398 Glebe 786 526 acres. Aghaloo—Tithes 609 £1,793 Net £1,642 Curate of Aghaloo £50 by Archdeacon 15 Glebe 35 From first fruits. £100
§ The Duke of Wellington:in the few observations which he should address to their Lordships, would advert, in the first place, to the observations made in the lat- 1554 ter part of the noble Lord's speech. It was perfectly true that he had no knowledge, and he believed the Government here had no knowledge, of any arrangement of this kind having been made; and he could also state that when the commission was originally issued, it was the decided intention of those who suggested it to carry its recommendations into execution. The noble Lord seemed to think that there was something suspicious in this case. Nothing of the kind. The individual who had been appointed archdeacon of Armagh wag known to the public and the Church only by his merits as a parochial clergyman, and for his standing in the university of Dublin. But he was known on no other ground whatever. He was connected with no influential family in Ireland. He was Rector of Inniscorthy, in the county of Wexford, when this vacancy occurred, and it being considered important that a man of merit should fill it, this individual was selected, for no reason whatever except on the score of his qualifications. The noble Lord seemed to think that an archdeaconry in Ireland was not so important an office as in this country. He had reason to believe that the Archdeacon was a most important officer in the Administration of the duties of this particular diocese of Armagh. We had had some discussions lately on the subject of the Church of this country, and had seen the importance attached to the duties of archdeacon. He could not admit, therefore, that it was unnecessary that there should be in this important diocese a clergyman to fill this office who was distinguished for his conduct and learning. He would tell their Lordships what the difference was between the present case and that of the deanery of Down. The dean of Down was appointed a very short time after the reception of the report of the Irish ecclesiastical commissioners. He was not a clergyman taken from a parish in another part of the country solely on account of his merits as a clergyman. He was the son—he did not mean to say anything against him in any way whatever—but he was the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, a person, by-the-by, who could not be expected to have been ignorant of the report of the commission; but, on the day when it was made, the hon. and rev. gentleman was appointed to the deanery of Down, and no arrangements were made for the severance of the united parishes in the deanery 1555 The case of Down was a mere political arrangement; the other related to a highly respectable, but an obscure man — he meant obscure in point of family and connection. Two such appointments could not be put upon the same footing. The noble Lord opposite had adverted with approbation to the conduct of the reverend head of the Irish Church, and had stated that if a vacancy had occurred by death, that that reverend person would have appointed a fitting individual to supply the vacancy, and would have urged the severance of the parishes, and that if he had to make arrangements for filling the archdeaconry in his diocese, he would have made such arrangements as would be most for the interest of the Church, and, therefore, most for his own honour. The Lord Primate had represented the expediency of making a severance of the union, but after the choice had been made of the person to fill the situation, considering what the condition of the benefice was at the time the most reverend Prelate had consented to its being held as a united benefice, instead of being severed. He should be obliged to trouble their Lordships with some of the details relating to the circumstances of the case, as it was a curious one, and he could not, without entering into such detail, explain how the question stood. The noble Lord had talked of this benefice as it stood at the period at which the report was made by the Irish ecclesiastical commissioners. He had stated it to be worth, united, upwards of 1,774l. Since then, however, a different arrangement had been adopted, which had reduced the amount very considerably. Indeed, the total amount of the revenue of the benefice at present did not amount to much more than one-half of the original sum. The original amount was 1,774l. Since it was payable, a portion of it, resulting from tithes, had been reduced, leaving the amount 1,547l. It was again reduced to 1,145l.; and next came another deduction under the Church Temporalities Act, by which the total amount was cut down to 981l. 7s. That was the present amount of the revenue of the benefice. The Lord Lieutenant was required to appoint a person to perform the duties of the archdeaconry of Armagh. He had to deal with these united parishes with an income of 981l., and the question was, whether it was most advisable to appoiot two clergymen, with incomes of I 1556 450l. each, to the two parishes forming the benefice, or whether it was most advisable to give the person who held the office an income of 981/. for the performance of duties which the commission stated should be recompensed by an annual sum of 1,000l. The noble Lord had stated that there was one curate appointed to the parishes, with a salary of 100l. per annum, for the performance of clerical duties. Now he had an account in his hand of not less than five curates employed in these parishes, besides the archdeacon. Under these circumstances, could it be contended that this was a case of the same description as that of Down? To say so was quite erroneous. The noble Lord had moved for papers, to the production of which he had no objection. He had no objection to let the House see how the entire matter stood, but he desired that their Lordships would not leave the House under the impression that the Lord Lieutenant had been guilty of any dereliction of duty. He had acted as he had deemed best for the interests of the Church in making the arrangements he did make, and in selecting the clergyman he did select, and who was appointed solely on account of his merits as a clergyman.
§ The Marquess of Lansdownesaid, that his noble Friend, in bringing forward his motion, had undervalued the importance of the case when he stated it to be a subject in which he was not personally interested. The parties who were interested in it were the public, the country at large, but, above all, the Church of Ireland, as the principles and interest of that Church were recognised and stated by its authorities, speaking through the words of that commission which lay on their Lordships' Table, a commission issued by her Majesty's Government, in pursuance not only of speeches, but of recorded resolutions of Parliament. When this subject was under discussion in the House of Commons, it was not upon the occasion only to which his noble Friend near him, and afterwards the noble Duke, had adverted, that of the deanery of Down, but on repeated occasions—lhat it was asserted by all men, and by no man more strongly than the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, that the inherent defects of the Church lay in these unions. Repeated propositions connected with the Church were brought forward in the House of Commons, and there was no 1557 one of these occasions on which the right hon. Baronet alluded to did not state that opinion. Did the right hon. Baronet stop there? No; he pledged himself as a man, on every occasion to contribute to the dissolution of these unions. In consequence of such sentiments so expressed being echoed from both sides of the Houses of Parliament, a commission was appointed —of which let it not be said, as of other commissions, that it was composed of persons either hostile in spirit, or secretly adverse to the doctrines or the discipline, or, if they pleased, to the wealth and revenues of the Church of Ireland—no, it was a commission composed of the great authorities of that Church, with the primate of the Church at its head, and what were the opinions and sentiments of this commission? They were these:—
That they had thought it their duty to apply their minds to the consideration of how many of these unions could be dissolved— that there were unions which presented difficulties to such dissolution—that they were sorry to be obliged to report that in many instances these difficulties were such that they could not recommend a division to take place, but that in a great number of cases they were prepared to say that it should take place.And, to give greater effect to that recommendation, they proceeded in detail, case by case, and circumstance by circumstance, to point out in each particular instance what were the circumstances that made that dissolution either imperatively necessary, or, at all events, greatly expedient for the interests of the Church. They proceeded with these cases, and with respect to the particular case now under discussion —a case, he might remark, which was the first that had occurred since the accession to power of the present Government which would enable them to carry into effect their own declared intentions, to apply their own principles with respect to this particular case, it was one in which the commission reported seriatim briefly, but distinctly and expressly, as follows:—Of this union a dissolution is practicable; the extent of the parishes, and the sufficiency of each to support an incumbent;" (a fact which he did not think the noble Duke would have denied—for even if the parishes were to be so separated they would be worth twice or thrice the average value of each benefice in Ireland); but to go on, the commission continued to state that these facts " reader a dissolution of tins union fit and desirable.1558 And they then stated that a " total dissolution was by them recommended." How was he to reconcile any doubt upon the subject with the declarations of the right hon. Baronet, the First Lord of the Treasury? He could go through debate after debate in which that right hon. Gentleman had recorded his opinions upon the subject. He would take one or two of these. In the year 1835 a great, general, and important debate took place in the House of Commons upon the then situation, interests, and prospects of the Church of Ireland. What on that occasion was the language of the present Premier? He quoted it with less reluctance, because on referring to the speech he found that the right hon. Baronet had done him the honour of quoting a former speech of his at considerable length. In that speech the right hon. Gentleman stated:—What I object to in the Church of Ireland is the system of the union of parishes.Now observe how he went on:—I think that whenever you make a reform in the Church, you should sever these unions, and constitute each parish the site of its parochial government.The right hon. Baronet did not mean the appointment of curates with 100l. a year, but he meant that of a competent clergyman, adequately endowed, making each parish a seat of parochial government. He then said:—I declare I should have thought that if your object and intentions had been to afford a remedy for existing evils in the Church, you would have severed the unions into these component parts, and have allotted a separate and independent minister to each.These unions, then, were, according to this, among the great evils which had haunted the Church of Ireland. The commission appointed to inquire for the means of remedying them pointed out cases where the evils of anion might be removed. Sir Robert Peel was now in power; the noble Lord opposite was in power; and yet the very first of these cases which arise under their Government was taken out of the principle, and the deliberate and express recommendations of the commission were set aside. And on what grounds?—that such was, he presumed, the poverty of the Church of Ireland. So insufficient were the means which it presented of rewarding distin- 1559 guished merit, that—assuming that the rev. Mr. Stokes was what he was represented to be, a most meritorious person, eminently able to discharge the duties of an archdeacon of the Church of Ireland—no other means were open, save those furnished by the archdeaconry of Armagh, for adequately rewarding him, without violating the pledges of the Prime Minister, and the declarations of every party in the House of Commons, and the authority of the law itself, which had in the intervening time stepped in since the affair of the deanery of Down, the appointment to which, by the way, was instantly abandoned, not only by the Government, but by the individual preferred, who would not for a moment stand in the way of any contemplated important reform. All the principles professed by the head of the present Government were to be sacrificed, for the sake of giving 100l. or 200l. a year more to Mr. Stokes, while 3,000 Protestants of Aghaloo were to be left without an adequate ministry. Let him not be told by noble Lords opposite, after this, that it was essential to the interests of Irish Protestants that well endowed ministers should reside amongst them. So certain was the principal proprietor of the parish of the recommendation of the commission being carried into effect, and that whenever, by lapse or otherwise, an opportunity should occur, a separate clergyman would be appointed, that he had built a church at his own expense; and there it now stood, waiting that arrival which her Majesty's Government had deferred causing for an indefinite time, to administer the rites of religion to the 3,000 Protestants of Aghaloo, It was by such acts that the interests of the Church of Ireland were weakened. Let him not be told of what was frequently and improperly called doing justice to Ireland, but let him be shown a case in which greater injustice was done to the Church of Ireland. He did not mean injustice to those who considered that Church merely as a means of providing for themselves and their families, but to that much larger body of the Church, including the laity as well as the clergy, who were bent upon the reception of spiritual assistance, and who did conceive that there should be a minister in every parish where there was a means of maintaining a competent clergyman. They often heard it said that an income of less 1560 than 200l. a year was not sufficient to maintain a clergyman in that respectability which his situation required; but if in this case they had thought it proper to make an unequal severance of the principle, they might have given the archdeacon 600l. per annum, and thus have left 400l. or nearly so, to the clergyman who was to minister to the 3,000 Protestants of Aghaloo. By setting such a precedent as the present case afforded, they would weaken the confidence of many in the government of Ireland, and they strengthened the hands of the enemies of the Church of Ireland by enabling them to hold up its benefices as not so much intended to afford spiritual advice and assistance to the people, as to enable convenient private arrangements to be made for enjoying its revenues. He believed that the noble Duke was ignorant of some of the facts of the case; because, if the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government were sincere in thinking these unions to be the great plague-spots on the Church of Ireland, if he had thought so for years, and held up their extinction in answer to every other remedy proposed for the Church of England—then he did say that not many days should have elapsed after he had been placed in the situation in which he now stood without special instructions being addressed by him to the Lord-lieutenant somewhat to this effect. " Attend to everything for the good of the country, attend to everything for the good of the Church, but, above all, attend to those recommendations being carried into effect for the good of the Church, pointed out by its bishops, advised by its commission, and which you must know 1 have at all times contended to be most important considerations?— touching the existence of the Church. Whether it were still too late for the Government to retrace its steps—whether, considering what they were told of the rev. Mr. Stokes, —a successful appeal could be made to him upon the subject, and his attention drawn to the example set by the presentee to the Deanery of Down—he knew not. He hoped that it the rev. gentleman could be induced to act as had the rev. gentleman appointed to the deanery of Down, and so get rid of the precedent now being unfortunately set, that he would not suffer thereby, but that it would require no great measure of ingenuity so to manage the Church patronage in Irelaud, 1561 that one archdeacon could be provided for without sacrificing the principles of the Church, violating the declarations of the Premier, and all at the expense of the three thousand Protestants of the parish in question. But if this could not be, what benefits could in future be expected to flow from any commission, when its most distinct recommendations were set aside for the purpose of making one convenient appointment? He hoped that the subject would be again brought before the House when the papers now moved for were produced.
§ The Earl of Riponsaid, that the noble Lord who had first spoken on this subject from the other side of the House had said, that the whole of this transaction was covered with a good deal of suspicion; and the noble Marquess who had last sat down expressed a hope that the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland would, on occasions of this kind, rather consider the recommendations of the ecclesiastical commissioners, as to what it would be advisable to do, under the circumstances, than do that which might be recommended only to him as convenient. The noble Marquess, then, absolved the Lord-lieutenant from any direct charge of having been guided by convenience in this matter. All he should say was, that if the Lord-lieutenant's case could not stand for itself, against any such imputations or suspicions as this, it would not be worth his while, or that of any one else, to say anything in his defence. Whether his noble Friend had acted right or wrong in what he had done, he had declared that he took the whole responsibility upon himself, although, as one of the Ministers, he thought they were hardly justified in allowing him to do so. His belief was, that the arrangement which had been proposed would prove more advantageous to the interests of the Church than if the separation between the two parishes had been carried into effect. He found that the total income of the two livings, instead of amounting to 1,780l, had been reduced to a little more than half that amount. One thousand a-year had been recommended by the commissioners, as the proper remuneration for an archdeacon; but his noble Friend who spoke last had turned this idea into ridicule, stating that in England there were archdeacons who had only as much 200l. a-year. His noble Friend admitted that the recommendation of the commissioners was, that the stipend of an archdeacon 1562 should be a thousand a year; and thus he should have agreed with the commissioners as to the separation of livings, but not as to the amount of remunerations for the duties of the archdeacon. He must say, that he thought the two noble Lords opposite had very much magnified the case which they had attempted to establish against his noble Friend. If there appeared any reason to believe that in this or any other act of his Government, the Lord-lieutenant had acted from interested motives, either personal or political, with any view to election purposes, or other unworthy motives, then, indeed, those noble Lords might have been justified in using much stronger language in reference to it than they had done to-night. He was anxious that the motives of the Lord-lieutenant should stand fully justified. He was convinced that the principles on which his Lordship had acted were fair and right ones. He thought, moreover, so far as his own opinion was concerned, that the Lord-lieutenant had exercised a wise discretion in the course which he had adopted in this particular case. He could not think that in taking this course the Lord-lieutenant had done anything calculated to injure the Protestant Church in Ireland, or to compromise the interests of the great and important community over which he presided, either in this or any other act of his Government.
The Earl of Wicklowsaid, simply judging from the facts which had come before the House, he was perfectly convinced that the Lord-lieutenant, in the disposal which he had made of this archdeaconry, had not fallen into the error which his noble Friend had admitted the late Government had fallen into when they had filled the deaconry of Down immediately following the advice of the commission not to make the appointment. [The Marquess of Lansdowne.—They immediately abandoned it.] Because the individual they had appointed had been willing to surrender the donation, and make it void, and of giving them an opportunity of remedying the error they had made. He thought, therefore, the noble Lord-lieutenant might have been excused by those who had fallen into such an error themselves. But judging from the manner in which the present Lord-lieutenant had made his church appointments, of his examination and disinterested choice of claimants, without reference to any interest whatever other than the learning, at- 1563 tainments, and qualifications of the applicants, he was confident that the same care and attention must have been given to this case. It was stated that the Primate had been consulted, and had acquiesced in the appointment as soon as the reasons for it had been given. His noble Friend had stated, that this appointment had caused suspicion; it might occasion suspicion amongst those who sat around his noble Friend. Knowing, as they did, how appointments had been made by their Friends—considering how the very appointment now referted to had been made, and how that Gentleman had afterwards been elevated to a bishopric—considering the removal of a Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and the appointment made of an Attorney-General to the Lord Chancellor ship, he was not surprised that some suspicion might arise in their minds at this appointment, though he denied that any such suspicion would be felt in the Church in Ireland. There was one circumstance connected with this case to which he wished to call attention. The gentleman appointed to this archdeaconry was considered as one of the fittest persons for it. It was a situation of great responsibility and of importance to the Church, and it was necessary to get a gentleman capable to fill the office. The noble Lord asked would he not have been willing to do the duty with the emolument of one living instead of two? The gentleman appointed had been removed from another diocese where he held a living worth from 700l. to 800l. a year, and he had received very little increase of income by the change; and without the appointment of both parishes he could not have been obtained. There was no reason whatsoever to infer from this appointment that divisions according to the recommendation of the commissioners would not take place in other cases.
§ Earl Fortescuesaid, that the noble Lord who had just sat down, in his zeal for his friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had, in his opinion, taken away the only excuse that could have been made for him in respect to this appointment, namely, that it had been made inadvertently; and in the absence of this excuse, he fully concurred in all that had been said by his noble Friends below him in reference to this proceeding; indeed, it was only out of respect to their Lordships' house that he did not express himself still more strongly 1564 on the subject. The noble Earl opposite had referred to an appointment which he had made in Ireland, and had alleged that his object in making it was to substitute one Lord Chancellor for another. He begged to remark, that when he made that appointment he had scarcely arrived at the seat of his Government. In fact it was the very first act of his Government. So utterly inaccurate was the noble Earl upon all that referred to his conduct in the Government of Ireland. Whatever his object in promoting the Dean of Down to the Bishopric of Tuam, and whatever might have been said on the subject, he felt that there were no grounds, either private or public, upon which he had to feel ashamed. He denied, also, that there was any fair analogy between the conduct of the late Irish Government in the appointment to the deanery of Down, and the present case. What were the facts of the case? The commissioners in their report had recommended that the benefices attached to the deanery of Down, should be severed. The deanery fell vacant immediately afterwards and then no great blame could attach to the Government if they were not immediately and accurately informed of all the contents of the report of the commissioners. But the moment that it was called to the recollection of the Lord Chancellor that the preferment which he had given to his son had been recommended by the commissioners to be abridged, than the rev. incumbent desired that the severance should be considered to have taken place before he had accepted the appointment, and that, if necessary, a bill should be brought in to carry the recommendations of the commissioners into effect. The consequence was, that as long as he remained in the deanery of Down, that gentleman's income was considerably lower than it had been before. Was not the conduct of the Government in this case, who carried into effect at the very earliest moment the recommendations of the commissioners, very different from that of the present Lord-lieutenant, who flew in the face of the recorded recommendation of the commissioners, leaving a town, containing 3,000 Protestants (not an unfrequent occurrence, by the way, in Ireland), to the care of a curate of 100l. a-year. It seemed to be assumed that the Lord-lieutenant was completely at liberty to set aside the recommendations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He knew that until those recommendations were enacted into law, 1565 they had not the force of law; but he certainly always considered it, in his own case, that all their recommendations as to the severances of livings were fully as binding upon him as if they had been confirmed by Act of Parliament. He would refer to the sole case of the living of Buenchurch, which, on falling vacant, he had given to a party, under a distinct understanding that it should be subject to any bill brought in for the purpose of dissolving the union of the two parishes of which it was composed. He was quite sure, moreover, that if it was the wish of the Lord-lieutenant that the Church should stand well in Ireland, he should not disregard the recommendations of the commissioners upon this point. The distance between parishes, the vast tracts of country partially or wholly unprovided with spiritual cure, had long been a matter of scandal and reproach; and all who wished well to the Irish Church should be forward to remedy an abuse so loudly and justly complained of. If the House refused to step forward on this occasion in vindication of this principle, a very heavy charge would lie at their door.
Lord Monleagle,in reply, said that he had had no intention of imputing any jobbing or unworthy motives to the Lord-lieutenant in making this appointment. Nothing;, however, which had been said justified the continuance of a system which had been already on all hands proclaimed a nuisance, and which must impair the efficiency of the Church of Ireland.
§ Motion agreed to.