Commons Sitting of 27 April 1830

MINUTES.
Returns presented. Number of Commissioners belonging to the London Bankrupt List:—Fees of Conveyancing and general Law Business (Scotland):—The Nineteenth Report of the Commissioners of Judicial Inquiry (Ireland):—The Expenditure of the Consular and Diplomatic Establishments in the New States of America:—An Abstract of the Reports concerning Pauper Lunatics from the different Counties of England and Wales.
Returns ordered. On the Motion of Sir JOHN NEWPORT, of any Money advanced by the Commissioners of First Fruits for the Purchase of the Rent reserved on the Glebe Land of Balymaglassan (County of Meath) in 1818:—Also, of Money advanced by the said Commissioners for the Erection of a Glebe House at the same place, specifying the time, &c.
Petitions presented. For the Abolition of the Punishment of Death in cases of Forgery—By Mr. WALROND from the Clergy and others of Sudbury:—By Mr. Alderman THOMPSON, from the Congregation of York-street, Wal-worth:—By Sir ROWLAND HILL, from the Clergy, Gentry, and other Inhabitants of Madely, Salop:—By Lord JOHN RUSSELL, from Newton, in the County of Bedford:—By Mr. R. PALMER, from the Mayor, Alder-men, and Burgesses of Maidenhead:—By Mr. DICKENSON, from the Inhabitants of Bath. Against any Alteration in the Welsh Judicature, by Sir JOHN OWEN, from the Inhabitants of Castle Martin; and from the Grand Jury of Cardigan:—By Sir W. W. WYNN, from the Grand Jurors of the County of Pembroke; and from the Freeholders of the County of Denbigh:—By Mr. PRYSE, from the Burgesses of Cardigan:—By Mr. HUGH OWEN, from the Burgesses of Pembroke:—And by Mr. RICE TREVOR, from the Inhabitants of Carmarthen. Against the Parish Matching and Lighting Bill, by Mr. BRIGHT, from the Commissioners of Paving (Bristol):—And by Mr. H. BATLEY, from the Commissioners for Improving and Paving St. Pancras (Middlesex). Against the additional Duty on Corn Spirits, by Colonel LYGON, from the People frequenting Worcester Market. Complaining of the Expense of Passing Vagrants, by Colonel LYGON, from S. Smith, Esq. Chairman of a Meeting of Justices in the County of Worcester. By Mr. W. SMITH, from the Inhabitants of Wick, praying for a continuance of the Bounties on curing Fish. Against a Free Trade in Beer, by Mr. MARSHALL, from the Licensed Victuallers of Sheffield:—By Mr. BERNAL, from Leamington.—By Mr. TYNTE, from the Licensed Victuallers of Bridgewater:—By Lord GEORGE LENNOX, from Chiehcster:—By Mr. MILDMAN, from the Licensed Victuallers of Winchester.
[The petitioners declared that it was impossible to get rid of the stock of Beer brewed for winter consumption, as well as the Beer brewed for summer consumption, within the time allowed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

IRISH PROTESTANT CHURCH.
Mr. Robert Kingrose, to present a Petition from the Inhabitants of the County and City of Cork, respecting the Established Church of Ireland, of his intention to present which he had last night given notice. The individuals by whom it was signed, in all 3,000, were all members of the Established Church. When the importance of the subject, and the number and respectability of the parties from whom the Petition had emanated, and who had intrusted it to him, were considered, he was persuaded that the House would deem it entitled to most serious attention. The objects which the petitioners had in view were, to effect a more equal distribution of the Church Revenues in Ireland, and to correct the abuses which existed in the administration of that Church. The petitioners declared, that they were convinced of the purity of the doctrines of the Protestant Church—that they were convinced of the purity of the Episcopal Establishments—that they were desirous of supporting the privileges of that Establishment—that they distinctly acknowledged the right of the Established Church of Ireland, as a body, to the Church Properly and Revenues—that they were far from considering that property and those revenues as superabundant, if they were more equitably distributed; and that they earnestly deprecated the application of any portion of the Church property to secular purposes, as tending to violate the principles of the Constitution, to endanger the connexion which ought to subsist between the Church and State, and to lead to national confusion and ruin. But while they were extremely desirous that the Church revenues should not be invaded for any temporal purposes, they contended that those revenues ought to be more equally distributed among the different classes of the members of the establishment. At present some of the dignitaries of the Established Church in Ireland enjoyed much beyond what the most liberal estimate would consider them entitled to, while on the other hand, those members of the Church on whom the most arduous and important duties devolved, received pittances insufficient for the supply of their most moderate wants, and entirely inadequate as a provision for those who performed services of so valuable a character. While, therefore, the petitioners admitted that a diversity of orders required a diversity of incomes,

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they were desirous that that diversity should not be so excessive, but that from the superabundant wealth of the one class the means should be derived of providing more adequately for the other. The petitioners also observed, that various abuses had crept into the administration of the secular affairs of the Established Church of Ireland; and they especially complained of the plurality of benefices enjoyed by some incumbents. This plurality necessarily involved all the evils of non-residence, and was evidently a misappropriation of that property to one individual, which, if distributed, would afford competence to several. The petitioners likewise remarked, that the evils of non-residence were not confined to those members of the Established Church in Ireland who held a plurality of benefices; but that, owing either to a defect in the laws which were intended to enforce the residence of the clergy, or to a laxity in the discipline of the Church, many beneficed clergymen were absent from their parishes; by which usage, those bonds which ought always to exist between a pastor and his flock were entirely dissolved. The petitioners also observed, that there did not seem to be sufficient authority on the part of the dignitaries of the Church, to control the moral conduct of the other classes; and that, as they considered it to be essential to the well-being of the Church itself, that the rulers of it should have an effectual control over those who, however corrupt and profligate, still participated in the revenues of that establishment which their conduct tended to injure and degrade, they were anxious that the episcopal authority of the Established Church of Ireland should be maintained and strengthened by the interposition of the Legislature. Such was the substance of the Petition which he would now beg leave to present.
On the Motion for bringing up the Petition,
Colonel Beresfordsaid, he did not intend to offer any opposition to the reception of the Petition, but he wished to state one or two facts. His hon. friend, in presenting the Petition, had spoken of it as being most respectably signed, as if it represented the sentiments of the entire Protestant population of Cork. But the fact was, that. out of a population of 30,000 Protestants, only 3,000 had signed this Petition; that though there were seven
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or eight peers resident, or connected with that county, only one individual amongst them had affixed his name to the Petition: and that out of 300 magistrates, only fifty-eight had put their signatures to it. He did not at all mean to question the respectability of those who had signed it, but he understood that since the public exposition of his sentiments which had been made by the noble Lord who presided at the meeting where this Petition originated, several gentlemen who had signed it had expressed a wish to withdraw their names from it.
Mr. Humeobserved, that many of the opinions expressed in this Petition, respecting the Established Church of Ireland, were similar to those which he had himself expressed in that House many years before. He had at that time reprobated the pluralities and the other abuses in the Church of Ireland, to which the Petition adverted. He regretted that he was not at the present moment in possession of the admirable remarks on the subject, which had been subsequently made by the noble Lord who presided at the meeting from which the Petition emanated. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, had denied that the Petition proceeded from the majority of the Protestant inhabitants of the County and City of Cork. But could he say that the averments of the petitioners were false? Could he deny the force of their statements? And was not a Petition, proceeding from 3,000 persons, fifty-eight of whom were Magistrates, and one a Peer, deserving the most serious attention of the House? As to its having been signed by only one Peer, it was not very extraordinary that few Peers should be found disposed to sign such a Petition, since it was their interest to keep the revenues of the Church at the disposal of the Ministers, who, as the noble Lord to whom he had already alluded stated, employed them for the purpose of bribing both Peers and Commoners. He knew the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman who had presented the Petition; and he claimed equal credit for sincerity when he declared that he entirely differed from the hon. Gentleman and the petitioners in their opinion, that the existing Established Church of Ireland was suitable to the present time, or fit for the country in which it existed. He had on a former occasion stated that a reform of that Establishment was loudly called

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for, and that the salaries of many of the Bishops and other Clergy were greatly disproportionate and extravagant. He perfectly agreed with the opinions of the petitioners respecting the number of pluralities and non-resident Clergy, and the various evils thence resulting; but he did not agree with the petitioners or with the hon. member for the County of Cork, that the whole of the revenue of the Established Church in Ireland ought to be maintained. The hon. Member was for what he called an equitable distribution of the Church income, but that income was in itself greatly too large. It was evident, from history, that the property of the Established Church was public property, at the disposal of that House, which had the right to take it from one set of men and give it to another. Suppose the House should declare that the Established Religion of the country should henceforward be Quakerism. In that case there would not be anything to be paid to the Ministers. What then would become of the property of the Church? Would it be allowed to remain in the hands of its present possessors? Certainly not Parliament would take it, and apply it as in its wisdom it might think fit. The property of the Church was not upon the same footing as private properly. Private property the Legislature had no right to touch, but it had an undoubted right to alter the disposal as well as the distribution of Church property. He did not think, therefore, with the petitioners, that the application of the Church property to secular purposes would be attended with revolutionary or other evil consequences. He was firmly convinced that, after pro- viding what was sufficient for the maintenance of the Protestant Clergy in Ireland, it was the duty of the House other- wise to employ what was superfluous; and for the purpose of ascertaining what was superfluous, it ought to institute the inquiry which the petitioners wished for. He cordially supported, therefore, the prayer of the Petition, and he hoped it would not be long before it was acceded to, and before his Majesty's Ministers would consent, either by a commission or by a committee of that House, to inquire from one end of the Empire to the other into the state of the Church property, with a view to its more proper distribution and application.
Mr. Kingexplained,—The statements
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which he had made he had made from the Petition. The Petition had attached to it the signatures of two or three Members of that House, and of the Mayor, Sheriffs, and other respectable inhabitants of Cork. The petitioners were members of the Church of England, and unconnected with any party.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerdid not rise to enter into a discussion upon the subjects adverted to in this Petition, because he was of opinion that discussions upon the presentation of petitions were peculiarly inconvenient. He rose for the purpose of entering his protest against the supposition that his unwillingness to enter into those details now, argued an acquiescence, on his part, in the principles avowed by the hon. member for Aberdeen. That hon. Gentleman appeared to allude to some former contests with him upon this subject, and he seemed to intimate, that in those contests, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had uniformly attempted to defend, or to deny altogether, the abuses which were stated to exist in the Established Church in Ireland. Now, he was sure that those hon. Members who had done him the favour to attend to what had fallen from him with regard to those different subjects when under discussion, would recollect that he had uniformly expressed his opinion, in accordance with the sentiments of several of the most respectable Clergymen connected with the Church of Ireland, that several evils connected with the state of the Established Church in Ireland required correction. There had accordingly been much, he might say, done within the last few years, to place the Church of Ireland on the footing on which it ought to stand. There had grown up lately a desire in all ranks of people, and especially in the Church itself, to remedy those abuses which were admitted to exist, and which owed their existence not to any neglect or fault of the heads of the Church, but to the particular circumstances in which the Church itself was placed. He hoped that this subject would be discussed upon the principle of removing abuses where abuses were proved to exist, but not upon the principle of condemning the whole body of the Clergy because there had been sonic members of it who had misconducted themselves; still less upon the principle of appropriating the revenues of the Church, as was proposed, by the hon. Member op-

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posite, to such purposes of their own as might best square with the wants or the conveniences of the public Exchequer.
Lord F. L. Gowerrose for the purpose of saying a few words in consequence of the self-complacency with which the hon. member for Aberdeen referred to this Petition, signed by fifty-eight Magistrates of the county of Cork, as a confirmation of the peculiar views which he had himself; previously taken of the state of the property of the Church in Ireland. However valuable the hon. Member might conceive this Petition to be as a confirmation of his own arguments, he would venture to affirm, that there was very little concurrence in the main between these petitioners and the hon. Member. The Petition set out with a description of the advantages which the petitioners considered their country to have derived from the Established Church,—a point on which their opinion was much at variance with the opinions usually advanced by the hon. Member. Then, as to having the Church dealt with as the other establishments of the country were, by annual estimates, he must say, that he did not rely much on the prophecies which the hon. member for Aberdeen had made upon that head. On referring to that old almanack of which they had occasionally heard so much in that House, he found that there was no instance in which the property of the Church had been dealt with in the liberal fashion recommended by the hon. Member, where the property of individuals had been held sacred. If he should ever live to see the Church property thus dealt with, he should then deem his own property no longer safe. He would, therefore, oppose such projects to the utmost of his power. His conduct in so doing might not appear 'very meritorious, as it would be founded on a motive of self-interest, but he saw no reason why men should not consider their own interests, when the consideration of them tended also to the public benefit.
Lord Oxmantownsaid, he differed entirely from the hon. member for Aberdeen, but he did not think the presentation of a petition the proper opportunity for entering into any extended discussion of the subject. He certainly was disposed to find fault with the system by which the Curates of the Church of Ireland were left entirely at the mercy of the incumbents of livings of which the Curates dis-
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charged the actual duties. This arose chiefly, he believed, from the practice of appointing young clergymen to curacies before they were licensed, and he should propose, as an improvement of that system, that every curate should receive his license as soon as he received his curacy. By such a system he would be placed under the protection of the Bishop of the diocese, instead of being left, as he was at present, in a state of dependence upon his rector, differing very little from that of a servant upon his master.
Sir John Newportdid not rise to prolong the discussion, but merely to remind the House, that it was not many days since it had presented an Address to the Crown, praying that it would appoint a commission to inquire into the abuses of the Ecclesiastical Establishments in Ireland. That commission had since been appointed, and he therefore was of opinion that, until the report of that commission was presented, any discussion like the present was both ill-timed and injudicious. When that report was laid upon the Table, they would see what abuses were clearly proved to exist, and what remedies were most easily applicable to them. For this reason, he should not trouble the House with any further observations on the present occasion.
Mr. Moorewould not have said a word upon the present occasion, had it not been for the extraordinary misapprehension under which the hon. member for Aberdeen appeared to labour. He would beg leave to remind that hon. Member that this Petition had been in preparation for some months before the meeting of Parliament. Those who had proposed it had challenged all the Protestants of Ireland to come forward in support of it. That challenge had not been answered,—a circumstance which, by itself, was a sufficient refutation of the allegations of the hon. member for Aberdeen, that his views with regard to Church property had met with the sanction of the great body of the Protestants of Ireland.
Mr. Baringwished to enter his protest against the doctrine which had just been laid down by the two right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that in no case was it competent for Parliament to meddle with the property of the Church, which was to be considered as safe as any gentleman's private property. At the same time, he felt himself bound to declare, notwith

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standing all the respect which he felt for the public conduct of his hon. friend, the member for Aberdeen, in other respects, that the hon. Member was the last man in the world to whom he would submit cither the reformation or the re-organization of our Church establishments. Still, he was of opinion that, without some revision, these establishments might be involved in great danger. He particularly adverted to the mischief likely to arise from the unequal distribution of the property belonging to the Church. There were several Bishops in England, who were unable to reside in their dioceses, owing to the want of proper residences within the limits of them, and owing to the insufficiency of their incomes to provide such residences. He happened to know that a most venerable and meritorious prelate, the Bishop of Hereford, resided, not in his diocese, but at Winchester. The Bishop of Llandaff resided in London, where he held other preferments, from the insufficiency of his income to provide him a suitable residence in Wales. The Bishop of Rochester, whose jurisdiction extended over a large portion of Kent, had an income not larger than many of our parochial clergy, whilst there were Bishops of other sees, with incomes so great as to amount to 100,000 l. a-year; or at least with incomes which would reach that amount in a very short time. When such was the case, he thought that it could no longer be denied that some change must be made in the distribution of the property of the Church, for the sake of the Church itself. He had no wish to establish an equality of revenue and of rank in the Church. He felt the advantage of our having and retaining a gradation of both; but still, it would, in his opinion, be of great advantage to the character of our hierarchy—which, he admitted, stood as high as that of any hierarchy in the world—to have such a distribution of property made among its members as would enable all of them to reside within their dioceses in a manner suitable to their rank in the Church, and to their respectability in society. When he was told that these were matters with which it was not competent for Parliament to deal in any imaginable case, he felt bound to protest against the doctrine. If Parliament acted upon such a doctrine, it would not promote but injure the Church. What the state of the Church of Ireland
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might be, he did not pretend at that moment to know. On that point he should have better information when the report of the Ecclesiastical Commission was laid upon the Table; but this he knew, that there was sufficient power in the three branches of the legislature to revise the distribution of its property. He would say the same with respect to the Church of England; not that he thought that Church too rich or too well paid; all that he contended for was, that Parliament had not merely the power, for that was unquestionable, but also the equitable right to exercise the power of distributing the property of the Church, as it thought most advisable, among the members of the Church. Whether Parliament had a right to say, "The Church is rich and too well paid, and we will devote its surplus revenue to the formation of Schools and Collegiate Endowments," was another question, into which he had no intention of entering on the present occasion.
Dr. Lushingtonhad no intention of speaking upon this Petition when he entered the House, but felt himself called upon to rise, in order to set right a statement which had just been made respecting some of our Bishops, and their mode of performing their duties. His hon. friend, the member for Callington, had stated to the House that the Bishop of Llandaff, who possessed but a small income from his diocese, resided constantly in London, owing to his being unable to provide himself with a suitable residence in his diocese in Wales. But he could inform the House, from his own knowledge, that that meritorious prelate had held it to be his duty to hire, at his own expense, a residence within his bishopric, and had gone down to it last summer, for the express purpose of performing his Episcopal duties. He should be extremely sorry if it went forth to the public that the Bishop of Llandaff had failed in the discharge of the functions of his station, when his conduct was of the most exemplary description. Next, as to the residence of the venerable Bishop of Hereford at Winchester. When the House considered that that Prelate was now past eighty years of age, and that he had discharged his duties in the most exemplary manner, as long as his strength and health permitted, it would hardly expect a man of his advanced age to do more than what he now did. It was only last year that he

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had gone down to his own diocese, though with great pain and suffering to himself. But then, said his hon. friend, "There are sees of which the incomes either arc, or shortly will be, 100,000 l. a year. "Last year, however, they had had before them a bill for the purpose of enabling the Archbishop of Canterbury, to raise a sum of money for the repair of Lambeth Palace, and other purposes therein specified. Upon that occasion it was proved that his whole annual income did not exceed 32,000 l. That was the greatest amount of income enjoyed by any English Bishop. Neither the see of York nor the see of Durham was worth any such sum. The revenues of the see of Durham, which was thought to be the richest see, he was assured, upon good authority, had never exceeded 22,000 l. a year. As. to the revenues of the bishopric of London, he must admit that they were on the increase. What might be the consequence of building on the land belonging to that see he could not pretend to tell; but he was of opinion, that the most sanguine calculator could not anticipate any thing at all approximating to such an income as his hon. friend had just stated, though he admitted that many buildings had been recently constructed on land belonging to the see of London. He thought it necessary to make this statement, as it would be productive of great inconvenience if the assertions of his hon. friend should go forth to the world without a contradiction. With respect to the Church of Ireland, he had only a few words to say. The noble Lord on the other side of the Mouse thought it a defect in the discipline of that Church that curates were not licensed as soon as they received their curacies. But there was no such defect in its discipline as he imagined. If the noble Lord would look at a small volume, by a writer who possessed as much talent and ability as any Bishop who had ever sat upon the Bench,—if he would look at the first charge which Horsley, Bishop of St. Asaph, delivered to his clergy, he would see that the Bishop told them, in words as plain as could be, that if they continued to employ curates without licenses, he would proceed against them, one and all, as the law directed. The licensing of curates was, in his opinion, a matter of great importance; and he could wish that greater attention were paid to it throughout the country. He could assure the noble Lord
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that the employment of curates without licenses was not the discipline of the Church of England; on the contrary, express provision was made, that no man should perform permanent duty in any of our churches or chapels without receiving either institution as incumbent, or license as curate. That provision was one of the best safeguards of the Church, and had always been so considered by our greatest writers upon ecclesiastical matters. With respect to what had been said of Church property, he wished to observe, that his views with regard to it did not accord exactly with those avowed by either of the two parties which had sprung up in this discussion. In certain cases he considered Church property to be individual property, as in the case of advowsons; in other cases he looked upon it as public property. As to altering the present system of its distribution, that was a project to which he, for one, could never consent. He knew the inconveniences which occasionally arose from one clergyman holding a small and another a profitable preferment; but when he balanced those inconveniences with the advantages which he saw springing every day from the present system, he was reluctant to disturb the present arrangement for any which had yet been proposed in its stead. He must have stronger reasons than any which he had hitherto heard to satisfy his mind that he should be doing right in adopting any of the alterations which had been recently suggested. With respect to the Church of Ireland, and he might add the Church of England,—he agreed with those who said that pluralities and non-residence were sources of great mischief and inconvenience, and he would accede with pleasure to any measure which would put a stop to these evils. He had often considered whether it might not be expedient to pass a prospective law, enacting that no clergyman, who should be ordained after a certain day, should be permitted to hold a plurality of livings, unless they were so contiguous as to enable him, whilst residing upon one, to perform in person the duties of all. To any remedial measure which should compel the residence of the clergyman who received the profits of the living no one could be more friendly than he was, considering the residence of the incumbent, to be one of the greatest blessings that could happen to a parish. He had seen

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the advantage of it over and over again in England; and thank God, it had latterly been exemplified in Ireland also. By the various measures which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had introduced into and carried through Parliament since he had been in office, he had effected—and what was more, he had been the first person who had effected—a great reformation in the Church of Ireland. So far as related to the introduction of measures beneficial to that Church, the right hon. Gentleman had accomplished a great and permanent good. There was a time—it was in vain to deny it—in which every appointment in the Church of Ireland was regularly bought and sold. At the Union, a number of appointments to offices in the Church were made, without regard to any thing except the interest which could be secured by them. Of late years that system had been departed from, and the duties of the Church had, in consequence, been performed more decorously and more beneficially than before. When he saw the Church thus improving, not, indeed, so rapidly as he could wish, but still, at any rate, progressively improving, he could not help hesitating before he gave his consent to any strong measure which, under the name of revision, might effect a revolution in its constitution and discipline.
Lord Oxmantownhad no doubt that the learned civilian had correctly explained the law; but if the law respecting the licensing of curates were such as he had stated, it was never acted on, and he believed it was unknown in Ireland. He was himself acquainted with a case, in which a clergyman had faithfully performed the duties of a curate for five years; during the whole of that time he never could succeed in obtaining a license, and at the end of it he was dismissed by the rector who employed him, without any cause being assigned for his dismissal.
The Petition read.
Mr. Baringsaid, that from the observations which had just fallen from his hon. and learned friend, he was afraid that he had unintentionally used expressions which reflected on the conduct of the reverend prelates whose names he had mentioned in his former speech. He assured the House, that if he had used such expressions, it was most unintentionally. No one could entertain a higher respect than he did for the Bishop of Hereford;
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and he fully agreed with his hon. and learned friend, that while his health and strength permitted, no prelate was more anxious to perform his duty to the congregations committed to his charge. The usefulness of the Bishop of Llandaff's labours to the Church was undeniable, and it was impossible that any duty which that prelate undertook should be inefficiently performed. In mentioning the names of those illustrious prelates, he had no other object than to observe, that they might obtain from their respective sees a sufficiency for the support of their rank in the Church and in society. He believed that at no former period was the reverend bench more respectably filled than at pre- sent. Still, he thought it a great inconvenience that one Bishop should have only 1,500 l. a-year, whilst another had 32,000 l. Such an arrangement did not contribute to the preservation of the independence of the clergy. Great as the information of his hon. and learned friend was on ecclesiastical subjects, he must say, that in his opinion his hon. and learned friend strangely under-rated the incomes of some sees. He had judged of the amount from their ordinary income, and had not taken into his consideration the fines paid for the renewal of leases, which were considered as part of their extraordinary income, though some fell in every year. The Bishops of some sees received in this manner more than three times the amount of their ordinary income.
Sir R. Inglisconcurred in the observations which had been so pertinently made by the hon. and learned civilian who had just addressed the House. From every information which he had been able to acquire, the hon. and learned civilian was perfectly correct in the maximum of income which he had assigned to the different sees of Canterbury, York, and Durham, arising not only from ordinary, but also from extraordinary receipts. The income of the Bishops in Ireland had been so grossly exaggerated, that if he were to say that it approached a fourth part of the sum ordinarily stated, he too should be guilty of gross exaggeration. With regard to the Bishop of Hereford, he had enjoyed the satisfaction of being known to that venerable prelate for the last twenty-seven years, and, in point of fact, was under great obligations to him. From his acquaintance with him he was able to say, that no man could discharge his duties in a more

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punctual, faithful and exemplary manner. Last year he had gone down to Hereford, and had resided three months in his diocese. He concurred with the right hon. Baronet in his remark as to the propriety of not then discussing the merits of the Irish Church, and he hoped that no further reference would be made to this subject until they had upon the Table the report of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which had been recently appointed.
Petition laid on the Table. On the question that it be printed,
Mr. Humetook the opportunity of complaining that two of the right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite benches had strangely misrepresented what he had stated respecting Church property. He would never shrink from avowing any language which he had uttered; but he thought it a little too bad to hear language palmed upon him which he had never used. There was all the difference imaginable between the property belonging to Deans and Chapters and the property which private individuals had in advowsons. He wished that the vested interest of every incumbent, and of every advowson should be held sacred. His observations merely applied to Church property belonging to Bishops, Deans and Chapters, and other ecclesiastical corporations. The result of this debate satisfied him that some further inquiry was necessary, and he trusted that Ministers would institute it speedily.
Petition to be printed.

VESTRIES IN IRELAND.
Mr. O'Connellsaid, he wished to call the attention of the House to a Statute passed so recently as in the year 1827, which considerably affected the properly of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland. The voice of the country had been raised against it. This was abundantly evident from the numerous petitions which had been laid upon the Table of the House. He had himself presented at least thirty petitions against this Statute, and he was convinced that three times as many had been presented by other hon. Members. In a word, the Act gave universal discontent, and he considered that its provisions were well calculated to do so; but he relied not, however, upon his own judgment, nor did he wish the House to take the fact upon his simple assertion. He could bring forward, in support of what he had stated,
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the authority of a clergyman of the Established Chinch—of Mr. Daly, the Warden of Galway, who, at a public meeting held in that town, stated, that not only were the people and gentry opposed to this Statute, but that even a magistrate on the bench of justice had designated the Vestry Act as infamous and abominable, and as a substitute for the Penal Code. Now this showed that the hostility to the Statute had not originated with him; and he was not giving utterance to his own sentiments and feelings alone, when he complained of it as an invasion of private property, and denounced it as giving individuals a power over the property of others which they ought not to have. The Act, he begged the House to remember, was a recent one; it changed the law, and inflicted additional grievances upon a class of people who were then unrepresented in that House; and he could not refrain from observing, that one of the greatest benefits which had resulted from the Relief Bill was, that there was at least one person, however humble and incompetent, at present, to endeavour, as far as his limited powers would admit, clearly to show the injustice of such Acts as this. The provisions of the Act against which he complained were shortly these:—The Vestry had the power of assessing the inhabitants to any amount for particular objects. The Act excluded the greater number of rate-payers from all meetings of the Vestry to consider of the building of any church or chapel of ease, or the rebuilding, repairing, and enlarging of the same. It excluded the Roman Catholics from the Vestries upon all these occasions. Next, it enabled the Protestant inhabitants exclusively to levy a rate upon all the other inhabitants of the parish for all purposes necessary to provide for the celebration of divine worship, as laid down in any Canon or Rubric now in force either in England or Ireland; thus including not only the Canons which may be in existence in Ireland, but also those which may only be known in England. Up to the passing of this Statute, the Roman Catholics were not excluded from meetings to consider the expediency of enlarging or repairing churches, or of voting upon any other questions, excepting for the building of churches, for the election of churchwardens, or for the demise of parish estates. In former times they were admitted to the discussion respecting the

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making of the rate, although they were not to that respecting the propriety of imposing it. The cases of exclusion had therefore been augmented since 1827, though the law then passed was not justified by any complaints against the Catholics. They had not obstructed the building, or repairing of churches, though all parties had before that time complained of the monstrous system of jobbing that was carried on by the Protestant Vestries. Now, nothing, in his mind, could be more unjust than this system. In England the Vestry had the power of levying rates on all the inhabitants for repairing churches, and this was perfectly just; but nothing could be more unfair than throwing the burthen of keeping up Protestant churches upon Roman Catholics, who formed the mass of the population in Ireland. Before the Reformation the churches were all in repair, and they were in sufficient number. By the canon law the clergy were obliged, out of the revenues of the church, to keep the church in repair. After this period, however, they were neglected and dilapidated, and instead of applying to the ecclesiastical fund, which ought to have been sufficient, the government of that day turned to the people, who were not guilty, and made them contribute for these purposes. Up to the passing of 12th of Geo. the 1st, Roman Catholics were admitted to vote at Vestries, but it was recited in this Act, that inasmuch as they had improperly prevented the building and repairing of churches, they should be therefore excluded from the Vestries. And yet, strange to tell, by an Act passed two years before, by the 10th of Geo. 1st c. 6, it was declared, that the consent of the majority of Protestants was sufficient for the building or repairing of churches, and consequently it was evident that the Roman Catholics could not, by possibility, have been guilty of that with which they were charged by the Statute of the 12th of Geo. 1st. He also complained, that if the Vestry did not choose to tax the parish to build and repair churches, the Bishops had the power of so doing. He had formerly been contradicted when he made this assertion, and had been consequently since led to examine into its correctness, and he found in the 23rd section, that the Bishop, if he thought fit, might issue a monition, ordering an assessment either for rebuilding or repairing churches, or providing any of the things necessary
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for the celebration of divine worship; and this order could be legally enforced. Thus it appeared the Bishops possessed unjust and unconstitutional power over the property of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Dissenters. Another provision was, that if a churchwarden, acting for the Vestry, were defeated in any action, he having even gone beyond the powers of the Statute (for otherwise he must be successful under its protection), yet was the amount of the verdict added to the costs, and the whole was levied on the parish. The Act also had an inconvenience with respect to the union of parishes. By one Act of Parliament, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Bishop of the diocese were enabled to unite parishes in perpetuity. But the Statute of George 4th enabled the Bishop, where a parish was destitute of a church, to unite that with any other parish he thought fit, and then it was to be taxed for the support of the church in the parish to which it was united, though it had, at the same time, to pay its own clergyman. He knew instances in which such unions had been made solely for the purposes of taxation; and the right hon. the member for Waterford had mentioned a case in which one parish, for this purpose, had been united to another ten miles distant. This was, he thought, a state of the law which ought not to be allowed to subsist. He complained also of this Statute, because in many parishes the number of Protestants was very small as compared with that of the Roman Catholics, while in other parishes there were no Protestants at all. He knew fifty parishes in Ireland, containing a population of 283,621 Catholics, and 3,228 Protestants, making the persons who imposed taxes about one in ninety of those who paid them. He also contended that the Statute was vague, and the powers of the Vestry were not defined. It might be objected, that if Roman Catholics were admitted, they would prevent the building and repairing of churches; but he thought that each class of persons should support its own religious establishment. The present state of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland fully proved that there was no necessity for Government's contributing anything to the support of a church establishment. He did not, however, propose to introduce any principle into his Bill which should have the effect of

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depriving the Church of England of any of those rights it at that lime possessed. He only wished to give the Roman Catholics the right of voting, as well respecting the propriety of imposing any rate, as the mode of levying it; and he would be at the same time ready to point out the remedy in the case of any improper opposition. If a pertinacious and unjust opposition were made to re-building or repairing a Protestant Church, the parish authorities might apply for a mandamus to the King's Bench; and the whole expense of the proceeding would fall on the parties unjustly opposing the measure. It was impossible, under the present system, when parish money was voted away by a few, that great favouritism should not exist in the expenditure of it. He would, however, avoid entering into any particular details, contenting himself with stating it was inconsistent with human nature that it should be otherwise. His Motion was simply this—to prevent the possibility of any one class being bound to keep its pockets open, that another might thrust its hands into them. The hon. and learned Gentleman moved for leave to bring in a Bill to alter and amend the laws relating to Vestries in Ireland.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that as he was the person who introduced and conducted through the House the measure, against which the observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman were directed, and which had been so often attacked, he might be allowed to say a few words in its defence. He would not enter into the subject with reference to any of the antecedent attacks which had been made against the measure, but would rather imitate the temper displayed by the hon. Gentleman upon the present occasion. He would proceed to show that the Act was not, as had been represented, an invasion of private property, and that it was not entitled to any of the appellations which had been bestowed upon it. When the Statute was passed, it was generally acknowledged to be an improvement of the law which had previously existed, and an alleviation of the burthens and obligations of that class whose cause the hon. Member particularly professed to advocate. It received the approbation of men who were as jealous of the interests of the Roman Catholics as the hon. Member himself; and amongst others, of Lord Plunkett, then. Attorney-general for Ire-
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land, who assisted him in passing the bill. He differed entirely from the hon. Gentleman with respect to the view he had taken of the general question: and he did so because he thought an Established Church was an integral part of the Constitution, which was essential to the well-being of the people, and ought to be supported for the benefit of the State, by the general contribution of all classes of the community. If, therefore, he had assisted in preparing a bill proceeding on a principle different from the principle entertained by the hon. Gentleman, it was because he had a strong feeling in favour of an Established Church, instead of allowing different sects to support their own institutions, without contributing to the expenses of the National Church. The hon. Member complained that the bill now under discussion gave larger powers of assessment to Protestant Vestries than they enjoyed under the former law. He told the House, that until this bill was passed, the assessments could only extend to the re-building and repairing of churches, but that the bill had added the building and the enlarging of churches, and the building and the repairing of chapels, from which the parishioners were previously exempted.
Mr. O'Connellhad only spoken as to the additional powers relating to the enlarging of churches and chapels.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerthen understood the hon. Gentleman to say, that so far as related to the re-building and repairing of churches, the previous law gave the Vestry a right of assessment. Now, the hon. Gentleman had much insisted on the system of procuring funds for building churches in England and Ireland, and he had stated particularly the hardships to which he asserted the latter country was subjected. It was true that in England the Vestries were not bound to levy assessments for the building of parish churches; but it was equally true, that latterly in Ireland the parishioners were not assessed for that purpose. In Ireland the funds came from another source—namely, the First Fruits. Advances were made to parishes from that source, and the sum so advanced was afterwards repaid, without interest, by the parishes. In the same way, when there was a necessity for erecting a church here, a sum of money was advanced by the Com-missioners for Building Churches, and the

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amount so advanced was repaid out of the proper rates. But whatever might be the hardship or inconvenience which the hon. Gentleman said resulted from obliging the parishes in Ireland to restore the sums granted to them for such purposes, that evil, it should be observed, did not arise under the bill of which the hon. Member complained. The law on that subject had its origin at an antecedent period; and by that law it was directed, that money lent for the purpose of rebuilding churches, &c. should be repaid. In framing the bill he had not overlooked that which the hon. Gentleman stated on former occasions to be the great and crying evil of the system, but which he appeared to have forgotten to-night. The first and most prevalent evil under the former law was, that the Roman Catholic could be compelled to take the office of churchwarden; or, in other words, he might be forced to appear in a situation the duties of which he was not competent to discharge. For that hardship the bill now complained of furnished a remedy. It did not exempt the Roman Catholic from any honour or advantage which might be derived from filling the office of churchwarden (for it was sometimes said, that it was connected with honour and advantage, and sometimes the assertion was denied), but it gave him the option of taking the situation or of refusing it, just as he pleased; he could no longer be compelled to undertake those duties. Another objection to the former bill, but which was removed by the present, although the hon. Gentleman had omitted to mention it, was this—that all matters of dispute relative to rates necessary for repairing or beautifying a church, were brought before an ecclesiastical tribunal, and the church, in such cases, was supposed to act as judge in its own cause. What, then, was done, in the bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman condemned with respect to this point? Why, that power was altogether withdrawn. It could not now be said by the Roman Catholic that cases of this kind were heard before an interested tribunal. Those cases were submitted to a tribunal of magistrates, where Roman Catholics as well as Protestants might sit in judgment. He would therefore say, that this single change in the system, if there were no other alteration effected, showed clearly the feelings which actuated the framers of this measure.
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It proved that they had no wish unduly to uphold the interests of the Established Church by the influence of ecclesiastical authority. The hon. Gentleman had said, that in other parts of the bill provisions were introduced, imposing very heavy burthens on the Roman Catholics. He admitted that the clause for enlarging churches was added to the provisions for building and repairing churches. But why was it added? Simply, because it was a compromise between existing interests, and it certainly appeared reasonable that the Vestry, which had the power of building, rebuilding, or repairing, should possess the minor power of enlarging, which, in many instances, might render it unnecessary to incur the greater expense of re-building. The hon. Gentleman's next objection was, that the bill gave to the Bishop full power, as he had stated on a former occasion, to levy any sum of money he might think proper on a parish, and that such sum might be raised without any interference on the part of the Roman Catholics. Now it would be necessary for the House to consider in what case that power was given. By the law of both countries, as it stood at present, the parishioners were bound to keep the parish church in repair; and so long as an Established Church was kept up, it must be so. If a church were suffered to fall into decay, the Bishop had a right to require that a rate should be levied for the purpose of having it repaired. That was the law of this country. When visitations were made, it was the duty of the Bishop to see that the necessary repairs of the church were effected; and if the parishioners did not think fit to make such repairs, the Bishop here, as in Ireland, had a right to compel them to do that which they ought to have done voluntarily, Of course a rate of that description must, like other parochial rates, be shared amongst all the parishioners. Such a principle might not have existed in the Statute-law of this country before, but it had long formed a principle of the Ecclesiastical law, that the Bishop should have a right to levy a rate for proper repairs where it was necessary. The present bill transferred that power from the ecclesiastical courts to another tribunal; and in doing so, it had effected any thing rather than the imposition of an additional burthen on the Roman Catholics. Another objection made by the hon. Gentleman to

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the bill was, that when a churchwarden proceeded against any parishioner, and was cast, the parish were bound to defray his costs. He admitted that this was so; but as the individual acted under the direction of the Vestry, it would be very hard, should the Vestry have taken a wrong view of the question, that the person acting in his official capacity should not be remunerated. He had thus gone over several of the provisions of the bill against which the hon. Gentleman had directed his complaints; and ho thought, if the House had done him the favour to listen to what he had said, that he had shown that the present bill had effected a great amelioration in the former law. He had corrected a great abuse which existed under the previous measure,—that of charging a gross sum as levied in the shape of rates, without stating to what purpose or purposes they were applied. Every item must now be distinctly pointed out. Indeed, the present bill went further, for it provided that the accounts should be open to the inspection of all the payers, and it gave the right of appeal to the magistrates against the amount of the rate, as well as against its particular appropriation. He would not say that the law was without any objections; but though he might admit that some provisions of it were capable of amendment, he could not consent, to a bill for altogether setting it aside. Above all, he could never allow the hon. Gentleman to introduce a bill to amend the existing Act, on the ground of the enormities or abuses which he had been pleased to assert had been generated by it. The hon. Member's amendment came to this, that every rate-payer within a parish should in future vote for the maintenance of the chinch, and for those things that were necessary to be supplied for it. He thought that was going too far. He knew there had been a dispute as to the matters on which Vestries ought to vote, and it had been suggested to him to state in the bill the subjects to which their votes ought to be restricted. He had not adopted that suggestion, but had attempted to attain the same end, by sending to the different parishes a circular letter, in which he referred them to the Rubric and Canons for their guidance. He had felt it necessary to say so much in vindication of himself and of his right hon. friend, for having prepared a bill which he must continue to think was an amelio-
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ration of the former law. He should therefore oppose the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. S. Ricesaid, he agreed with much of the latter part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, but not with the early portion of it. The right hon. Gentleman had risen to vindicate his bill; but the real and practical object which it was the duty of the House to discuss was, whether or not a case had been made out, even by the admission of the right hon. Gentleman himself, which rendered it expedient and necessary, without looking to the feelings and views of those who framed the law, to alter and amend it. On the part of those immediately connected with individuals who were affected by measures of this character, he thought the House had a right to expect that a more distinct pledge should be given—and that, too, without loss of time—by his Majesty's Government, of their intention to propose some alterations in this measure. He confessed for one, without meaning any disrespect to the hon. member for Clare, that he should be glad to see the amendment of the law taken up by the Government of the country rather than by an individual. The hon. member for Clare appeared to agree with him in that sentiment; and therefore would acquit him of any disrespectful feeling. He should, with reference to the success of any new measure, wish to see it proceed directly from the Government, in preference to its being introduced by an individual unconnected with the Administration, because, coming from such a quarter, it was undoubtedly more likely to be carried. He entirely concurred in the sentiment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, whatever defects were to be found in the bill as it now stood, such defects were not to be imputed to those who introduced the measure to Parliament, or to those who endeavoured to improve it. The whole spirit which was manifested in the debates in Parliament on this subject, was evidently dictated by a desire to apply a remedy to an admitted evil; and he must say, that in many important points that remedy was afforded by the bill before them. But admitting that, was he to be precluded from voting for a measure to remove other defects? Certainly not. At the same time, he would vote with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, provided a pledge were given by the

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Government that it would adopt other, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give him credit when he said, better, remedies for the evils than those which had yet been proposed. On the ground that the present law was capable of amendment, and because he thought it ought to be amended,—on this ground, and after the gross violation of the law, such as it was, that had taken place in Ireland, and holding in view the neglect of the circular promulgated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite on the subject,—he thought Ministers were bound to give immediate notice of their intention to propose some alteration and amendment of the law. Such an amendment need not affect the principle of the bill, and would strengthen instead of impairing the solidity of the Church establishment. It should be so managed as to cast the burthen of the rates on the landlord, instead of imposing it upon the tenant. He thought that such a change would be most beneficial. There was one subject in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to which he could not avoid alluding. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that he had sent a circular letter to the Vestries, referring them, for the guidance of their conduct, to the Rubric and the Canons. He must say, that he wished that instead of such a reference, their duties had been clearly defined in a schedule annexed to the Act of Parliament, that it. might have come before the Vestries as a legislative measure, instead of appearing in the form of a circular letter from the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant. To whom was that letter addressed?—Why, to Irish Vestrymen. He was at that moment speaking to the English House of Commons; yet he would venture to assert, that there were hardly ten Gentlemen present at that moment who knew one single word of the directions contained in the Rubric or the Canons. What then could Irish Vestrymen know of such things? This uncertainly of the law had introduced a spirit of hostility and litigation which he had hoped would be taken away, and recalled feelings which he had hoped were entirely set at rest. It was under these circumstances that he wished to call his noble friend's (Lord F. L. Gower's) attention to the constitution and operation of the Irish Vestries Act. The present was a subject which excited more attention in Ireland than many others of greater import-
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ance: the petitions upon the Table proved that. The Legislature was asked to amend a law which it was pretty generally admitted required amendment, and unless the Government took up the subject, he should therefore vote for the proposition of the hon. and learned member for Clare. In doing so, he did not mean to pledge himself to go to the full length which it was possible that hon. Member might have in view; he should pledge himself to nothing more than an amendment of the Irish Vestries Act, and that in the absence of a pledge from Government. But he trusted that the noble Lord, who from the nature of his office, was charged peculiarly with the interests of Ireland, would not return to that country without being able to say to the people of Ireland, "There has been a case of grievance and considerable existing evil made out with respect to the operation of the Irish Vestry law; and feeling it to be my duty to devise a remedy for the evil myself, I introduced a bill into Parliament, which is now law. You owe the removal of the grievance to the Government and the Legislature."
Mr. Mooresaid, the principle that Roman Catholics and other dissenters from the Established Church should be exempted from contributing to its support, had been very adroitly disclaimed by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite on this occasion, who, however, at the same time that he disavowed any intention of introducing that principle in his amended bill, spoke in such a manner, that he could not but believe, if the Bill were allowed to pass into a law, that the very next attempt of the hon. and learned Gentleman would be to introduce and establish that principle. The hon. member for Limerick gave up the remaining principle which the learned Gentleman sought to enforce, so that he (Mr. Moore) was relieved from going into the details of the subject. Of this he was satisfied, that infinitely more excitation would be produced in Ireland generally by an alteration of the law, as suggested by the hon. member for Clare, than could be compensated by the soothing effect which the learned Gentleman expected from the change in parishes where the numbers of dissenters from the Established Church predominated. It was well known that there were parts of Ireland where the Protestant inhabitants had no parochial place of worship. In such cases, the act of the 4th of Geo. 4th gave the Bishop of the

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diocese the power of conferring upon the inhabitants a right of attending the church of the adjoining parish; and so long as circumstances required them to do so, and no longer, were they to pay rates towards the support of that church; for although the Bishop had, to a certain extent, the power to unite adjoining parishes, it was a power only to be exercised for good and wise purposes, and in cases were necessity required it; and as soon as a parish built a church for its own use, the annexation fell to the ground, and the rates payable to the other parish ceased. He denied that there was anything indefinite in the existing law, which it was true, contemplated "the providing of all things necessary for the celebration of divine service, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England." This was explained to be all things required by the rules, and canons, and rubric of the church, and upon the extensive meaning of the latter word "Rubric" the hon. and learned Member had rung the changes here and elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman went on to say, that the meaning of the term "Rubric" was extremely simple, and that if the learned Member looked into Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, he could find a definition of it. In fact, the "Rubric" was the directions contained in the Book of Common Prayer with regard to the celebration of divine service, and in old Prayer Books these directions were frequently printed in red ink, and were therefore termed the Rubric. After this explanation, he thought it could not be maintained that the Act of Parliament was not sufficiently distinct and definite on the subject. The hon. Member concluded by expressing his determination to vote against the Motion.
Sir J. Newportsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down thought it right to refer the House to Burn's Ecclesiastical Law for the meaning of the terms "Rubric" and "Canons of the Church;" but the right hon. Gentleman opposite was content with issuing a circular as to what the Rubric required without referring to Burn's Ecclesiastical Law. What was the result of this letter? The result was, not only that many of the parishes treated it with levity, but several of the incumbents said, the right hon. Gentleman had no authority to send such a communication, and one individual went the length of saying he set it at nought. In one parish in
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Dublin, under the head of matters "necessary for the celebration of Divine Service," was a vole of 300 l. agreed upon in vestry, and granted to two curates for performing of early service, not leaving it to the incumbent to provide for the payment of his curates. Sums of money were voted for vestry clerks, bellows-blowers to the organ, organ-tuners, teachers of charity children, and other objects never contemplated by the Act, and all this under pretence of "things necessary for the celebration of Divine Service, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England." Such circumstances showed the necessity of guarding the Act against the possibility of misconstructions. He heartily wished that the assessments could be provided for by other means than annual vestries, for the purpose of avoiding the chance of excitement. One great evil was, that if an aggrieved parish appealed, and were successful in that appeal, the costs were still thrown upon the parishioners. Another was, that when an appeal was determined on, it was necessary to enter into recognizances to prosecute, and as few parties liked that responsibility, the power of appeal, which he admitted was intended to benefit the population of Ireland, was in fact, and practically of no use whatever. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by expressing a hope that the noble Lord (Lord F. L. Gower) would give an assurance of his intention to propose an amendment in the existing law, and observed, that if this suggestion were not adopted, he should feel bound to support the Motion of the hon. member for Clare. If Government took the matter into their own hands, no doubt the learned Gentleman would be content to leave it with them.
Lord F. L. Gowerconsidered it his duty to oppose the Motion of the hon. member for Clare, and in doing so would take the opportunity to explain very briefly his views of the subject. When first he undertook the duties of the office which he now held, he entered upon them with impressions and notions as to this law, which had been considerably changed by what he had observed since he went to Ireland. He was prepared to find a case of remarkable failure and grievance, but he must say that his impression, arising from recent experience, and from what he had seen of the working of the law in the country, was, that it was a law which rather admitted than urgently required

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amendment. It was not necessary for him, after the explanation offered to the House by his right hon. friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, from his share in the enactment of the measure, was the most proper person to explain its details, to go into the subject minutely. The hon. member for Limerick must excuse him if, with the impressions now existing in his mind, he felt considerable caution as to pledging himself to the immediate introduction of any enactment on the subject. On general principles he was reluctant to do so, not having made up his mind fully on the matter. He had formed an opinion with respect to various details of the act, and thought that some of them might perhaps be amended and improved; but bearing in his recollection all the suggestions that had been offered on the subject, he had not yet been able to determine as to the course he should take, or the extent to which he might be able to adopt these recommendations. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that it was a fit subject for inquiry by a committee up stairs; and that was sufficient to entitle him to decline giving the pledge which the hon. Gentleman so urgently pressed for. He felt it his duty to deal candidly and fairly with his hon. friend, and to say, that if he were disposed to rest his vote on the hope that Government would, in the course of the present Session, bring forward an enactment on the subject, anxious as he felt to have his hon. friend vote with him, he could not purchase that vote by offering the pledge which his hon. friend required, because in doing so he might only be deceiving him, and the House. If he understood the hon. member for Clare aright, his proposed alterations would amount to an admission of rate-payers of all descriptions to privileges from which they were excluded by the present Act; and the hon. Gentleman appeared to think that the danger and inconvenience that might once have resulted from this course was now reduced to almost nothing, by the good feeling existing among all classes on the other side of the water. He was happy to say this good feeling did exist in a great degree on many subjects, and he could wish that the temperate tone of the present discussion had prevailed in all discussions of the subject, and in regard to all matters relating to Ireland. Such a circumstance might have almost reconciled him to the learned Gentleman's proposi-
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tion: but the tone and temper referred to was not the tone of feeling that always prevailed in Ireland on this or other subjects, as the hon. member for Clare well knew. He was not sure that the tone of feeling in Ireland with regard to the particular Statute in question, was such as rendered it desirable to deal with the subject at the present moment. It was partly upon this ground that he thought the hon. Member's expectations, with regard to the working of his proposed alterations, would not be borne out. Under all the circumstances of the case, he could not give the pledge required at the hands of Government, and felt bound to oppose the Motion of the hon. member for Clare.
Mr. Trantsaid, the hon. and learned Member had told them how highly a Church could flourish without any provision; while he said, at the same time, that it was not his present intention to go further than the measure then before the House: but who could doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman's ultimate intention? No one who, like him, was an earnest and sincere member of the Roman Catholic Church, could reconcile it to his feelings, to omit bringing forward motions of that nature. He could not help endeavouring to make some progress—he hardly knew what to call it—in undermining what he could not but regard as an intrusive Church: it was perfectly natural, and so obvious, that all men had foreseen that the moment a Roman Catholic Member obtained a seat in that House, measures would be introduced for the purpose of overturning the Established Church in Ireland. This, in fact, was the object of the hon. and learned Gentleman, though he couched it under the name of an amendment in the Vestries Act. He should deeply regret to see the Church of Ireland regulated by a schedule in an Act of Parliament, as proposed by the hon. member for Limerick, instead of being-regulated by the Canons and the Rubric. There might be philosophers and economists in that House, but he trusted, the people would support him in maintaining the rights and privileges of the Church of England. He hoped and believed that the people of England would support him and other Members of that House, in watching, with the greatest vigilance, anything affecting the interests of the Established Church in Ireland.
Mr. Secretary Peelsaid, he most fully

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concurred with the hon. Member who had spoken last, that they should look with the utmost vigilance to all that affected the interests of the Established Church—there was no motion brought forward as the present had been which should not be regarded with, he might even say, suspicion—a motion made upon such a subject, and having such an effect, by an hon. Member dissenting from the doctrines of the Church, and avowing opinions with respect to contributing to the maintenance of the Established Church, such as had been avowed by the hon. and learned Mover—to which he added, that he contemplated ulterior measures, which, for the present, he did not think it expedient to put forth. Now it was to be regretted that he had confined himself to that imperfect statement of his opinions; it would have been much to be desired, that those opinions had now been submitted to the House, that they might know at once what the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to do. With respect to the particular question then before them, he begged to say, that he was far from denying that very plausible arguments had been brought against points and portions of the Act, of which it was the object of the hon. and learned Gentleman to procure the repeal; but he looked to the main principle of the Motion, and upon principle he opposed it. He understood the main object of it to be to enable Catholics and other Dissenters to vote at Vestries concerning the imposition of Church-rates.
Mr. O'Connell: Other Dissenters vote now.
Mr. Secretary Peelresumed: If Roman Catholics were permitted to vote, he foresaw it must be productive of the most endless confusion in Ireland, and would lead to the destruction of that, peace and good-will now so happily prevailing in that country. The Church of Ireland was a branch of the Protestant United Episcopal Church of England, and the reform carrying on in the whole of that Church required an increased supply of places of worship, and he knew not how those were to be had otherwise than by taxing the possessors of land in Ireland. They could not expect England to pay for those churches; and if it turned out that the possessors of land in Ireland were not able to pay for them, then England must see that they were paid for from some other quarter, so as to keep the burthen, if pos-
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sible, upon the shoulders of those who ought to bear it. The members of the United Church had a right to look to the possessors of land in Ireland, for the maintenance of the decent performance of public worship, according to the form of the Established Church. For his part, he knew nothing better than levying parochial rates for this purpose. He confessed he heard with surprise a lawyer recommending an enactment, giving the power of application to the Court of King's Bench—it might be said, that even at the present moment there existed the means of application to the King's Bench; he did not know whether it was so; if it was, he regretted it; for, in his opinion, the Court of King's Bench ought to be kept aloof from all party contention, whereas the measure which the hon. and learned Gentleman sought to carry, would have the effect of erecting the Court of King's Bench into a political tribunal, exercising a discretion upon the expediency of erecting a church in every parish in Ireland. He knew that in certain cases of rates, that Court could issue a mandamus; but he should most decidedly object to devolving upon that Court the exercise of a political discretion, instead of leaving it exclusively to its legitimate business, the administration of justice. Admitting the force of some observations which had been made respecting the operation of the Vestry Act, he preferred giving the present Motion a decided negative, to adopting any other course; nor should he purchase the concurrence of any hon. Gentleman in that House, by giving a distinct pledge to propose any alteration in it. He could not conceal from himself the difficulties that were in the way of any attempt to specify by law, in what, cases Vestries should have the power of imposing rates. The Canon Law and the Rubric were, it must be admitted, but little understood, and rarely referred to by those who took an active part in the business of Vestries; and, in the circumstances in which the circular letter of his right hon. friend had been issued, he did not, he confessed, see how a more expedient course could have been pursued. Though fully aware of the difficulty of accomplishing the object of which he spoke, he could not help expressing a wish that all those cases were specified by law; for it was scarcely to be supposed that the Roman Catholic would remain satisfied with any practice, merely because

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it was prescribed by the Canon and the Rubric, and not specified in any legislative enactment. It would be, therefore, convenient and advantageous, that a law should be passed, did no grounds of objection to it appear; but to say anything decisive, one way or the other, would be giving a pledge in the course of a debate too important to be given, except upon due consideration. There were other points connected with the present question, which required much consideration, and to which he was willing to give his serious attention, but upon which he could then give no pledge. As to the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he differed from it in principle; and therefore he was prepared to give it his most decided negative.
Mr. O'Councilclaimed the privilege of saying a few words in reply. He objected to the payment of cess by Catholics, so long as they were denied the power of voting at vestries, and so long as the purposes for which the money was voted remained undefined. It was most unfair to charge him with making the present a question of religion—he had studiously avoided making it so—it was a question of pounds, shillings, and pence—it was a question about levying distress, and the pocketing of fees upon that distress—that was not religion, that was extortion, and the party guilty of it was an extortion, and no Christian at all. Those who had to observe upon what had fallen from him, and who felt themselves called upon to oppose his Motion, seemed much discontented at the manner in which he had introduced his Motion. He remembered once hearing a counsel say to a witness, "Why don't you say something that I can lay hold of?" Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to be somewhat in that situation—they seemed to be amazingly discontented with him for not saying something that they could lay hold of. He should now come to another point. The great principle for which he contended was this—that no one sect ought to have the power of taxing another at its discretion, for the maintenance of an adverse system of religion. If the Protestants of England bore the same numerical proportion to the Catholics here, which the Catholics of Ireland bore to the Protestants there, he should feel but little respect for the Protestant body, if they allowed a few Catholics to tax them for the maintenance of
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their own form of worship. But then it was said, that all this pecuniary aid was necessary for maintaining the poor Established Church of Ireland; impoverished as it was, and destitute of pecuniary means to defray the charges of its public worship, it behoved them to do something for its protection and support. Good God! was it to be endured that such language should be applied, as he had heard, with respect to the Established Church of Ireland?—a Church the richest in the world, compared with the wealth of the people amongst whom, and at whose expense, it was established. Yet they were told that the inordinately rich church ought not to be expected to pay for its own sacramental elements; for the decoration of its places of worship; for the salaries of its pew-openers; nay, for the winding-up of its vestry clock: he found that to be one of the items. No; the Church was to pay for none of these; but that richest of Churches was to tax the poorest of nations, and that for the maintenance of a system opposed to the feelings and principles of the great mass of the people. Formerly vestries could not impose taxes oftener than once a year—on Easter Monday or Easter Tuesday. By the present law, they could impose taxes on every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and every day in the year except Sunday. They possessed an unlimited power of taxation over their fellow-subjects. It was said, that the people possessed a power of appeal to the magistrates at sessions; yes—but then they must give two sureties in 100 l.each [No, no]. Yes, but he had the Act. He wished the hon. Gentleman to refer to the 16th section, and then to the 17th. He would there find, that appellants to the Sessions were bound to find two sufficient sureties in 100 l. each. The Act stated, indeed, that the appeal should be received with securities or without them, at the discretion of the magistrates, should they think fit to dispense with them. But would the magistrates dispense with them in any case except in the cases of rich men, to whom the dispensation would be of no value?—the poor man, who could not find the securities, would be the very person required to find them. He then proceeded to observe, in detail, upon some of the clauses of the Act, complaining that the least irregularity in the form of proceeding was fatal to any appeal—that the whole time, therefore, occupied in try-

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ing appeals, was spent in trying, not the merits of the question at issue, but the forms of the proceeding. It was a system such as that which made law-reforms necessary—it was well known that the greater portion of the time of the inferior courts in this country was spent in settling questions of form, without the slightest reference to the merits of the questions in dispute between the litigants. It was objected by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that the Court of King's Bench was not a fit tribunal for the purposes which he contemplated. The power which he proposed to confer on the Court of King's Bench was perfectly analogous to powers already possessed by that Court, and in many cases of rates exercised by the Court of King's Bench, in England, amidst its multifarious duties. A mandamus in the case of rates in Ireland was perfectly usual, and the power which he meant to convey would not place the King's Bench in any novel or inconvenient position. What formed the chief ground of his complaint was, that there should be taxation without the power of voting, and for purposes opposed to the feelings of the people, and not defined by law. He knew fifty parishes in Ireland in which the Catholic population were to the Protestant as eighty to one—was it to be endured that one should be placed over the eighty, and invested with power to tax them at his discretion, and for purposes of his own sect? It was against every principle of British justice, and opposed to every principle of the British Constitution. Was he, a Catholic, then to be taunted with complaining against that? He was in that House because the people of Clare sent him into it; but he did not appear there as a sectarian—he rose in his place to contest a question of pounds, shillings, and pence—he had done all in his power to bring forward the Motion in a manner the best calculated, as he conceived, to avoid offence—and he must be allowed to say, that he thought he had not been treated as he deserved. The motive which had been imputed to him by the hon. member for Dover was most unjust—he was influenced by no such considerations—he knew no religious distinctions except in the Temple of his God—he scorned and repudiated the purposes imputed to him-—-and ho appealed on behalf of the people of Ireland to the justice of an English House of Commons.
The House then divided, when there appeared—For the Motion 47; Against it 177—Majority 130.

List of the Minority.

Althorp, Lord

Monck, J. B.

Buller, C.

Macintosh, Sir Jas.

Baring, Alex.

Macdonald, Sir James

Baring, B.

Marshall, John

Blandford, Marquis

Maberly, Colonel

Benett, J.

Martin, John

Clements, Lord

Macauley, W.

Clive, E. B.

Morpeth, Lord

Cave, Otway

Newport, Sir John

Cavendish, W.

Ord, William

Duncombe, Thomas

Philips, Sir G.

Dundas, Thomas

Power, R.

Dawson, Alexander

Parnell, Sir H.

Davenport, E.

Palmer, Fysche

Easthope, J.

Ponsonby, hon. F.

Ewart, T.

Robinson, Sir C.

Fazakerley, J. N.

Rice, Spring

Graham, Sir J.

Stanley, hon. E.

Guise, Sir W.

Talbot, R.

Grattan, J.

Tuite, H. M.

Hobhouse, J. C.

Wilson, Sir R.

Howick, Lord

Warburton, Henry

Knight, R.

TELLERS.

Kennedy, Thomas

O'Connell, Daniel

Lambert, Colonel

Hume, Joseph

ADMINISTRATION OK JUSTICE.
The Attorney General The Attorney General moved the Order of the Day for the second reading of the Bill for Improving the Administration of Justice.
Mr. Jonesobjected to proceeding with the Bill at that hour. The Bill itself was objectionable in most parts, particularly in those which referred to the Welsh judicature. It was divided into two parts, which were not at all necessarily connected, and between those was introduced a measure not connected with either—namely, the abolition of arrest for debt for any sum less than 100 l. Many who approved of one part would disapprove of the other. Indeed, the Bill, taken altogether, was the greatest skeleton of a bill' he had ever seen. It would take six months in a committee to put flesh on its bones. It looked as if the hon. and learned Gentleman had put together all the marginal notes of a whole volume of statutes, and put them together without order or form. Such a bill he had never seen in that House, except it was a Poor-bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman himself had introduced some few years ago, and which, though he had been two years in preparing it, appeared such an abortion when laid on the Table of the House, that it was al-

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most immediately withdrawn. The Bill before the House was full of absurdities and inconsistencies; he could mention several, but one or two would suffice. The Bill left to the King in Council the power to consolidate two shires in Wales as might be deemed necessary, and thus one sheriff was to act for the two—the sheriff acting in one county, and his sub-sheriff in the other. But he should be glad to know, if the King's writ were to be directed to the sheriff to return a Knight of the Shire for each county, how he was so to divide himself as to avoid the penalties which would fall on him for not attending to each as directed? Then, under this Bill, there was no way by which a person in Wales could levy a fine and suffer a recovery; so that all property would be at a stand-still in that country. On the whole he would say, that a greater jumble of incongruities he never saw put together in the shape of a bill; and if the question of the second reading was pressed at this late hour [nearly eleven o'clock, and when many Welsh members had left the House, not expecting that it would be brought on, he should feel it necessary to move the question of adjournment.
Mr. Secretary Peelobserved, that the opposition of his hon. friend to the Bill was certainly unfair. He raised objections to the measure, and then compared it to a measure on the Poor-laws which had been introduced by his hon. and learned friend some three or four years ago, with which, however, it had nothing whatever to do; and after having made a speech himself, he wished to prevent farther discussion by moving an adjournment. If his hon. friend had objections to parts of the Bill, the committee was the place to discuss them, and it would therefore be more proper to let the Bill go into committee, and discuss them there.
Mr. O'Connellobjected to the Bill, and the present was the proper time for making the objection, because it was too late an hour to enter upon the consideration of a measure of such importance There were parts of the Bill which had no connexion whatever with each other; one part relating to Wales, and the other to regulations at Westminster-hall. The appointment of the three Judges to the courts in Wales had no necessary connexion with the courts in Westminster; for if the business were equalized in the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer,
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there would be no need of any additional Judges. The Speech from the Throne promised legal reforms, and this Bill was the performance of that promise. He agreed, however, with the hon. member for Carmarthen, that it was an abortion, and that it diminished no expense, although it might remedy some delay. It was intended, indeed, to benefit no one but lawyers in first-rate practice. He objected to the Bill, also, because of its abolition of some parts of the Welsh jurisdiction,—for instance, the sending-up every Welshman to the Court of Chancery here, who had any equity business, was an inconvenience to the people of that country, to which they ought not to be subjected, and if the hon. Member did not move, under these circumstances, the adjournment of the House, he would.
The Order of the Day for the second reading was read.
Mr. T. P. Williams Mr. T. P. Williams moved that the House do now adjourn.
The Attorney Generalsaid, that if he postponed the Bill from to-night, he did not know on what night or day he could fix, and many Members expected that the Bill would be brought on to-night. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had shown so much zeal in defence of the Welsh judicature as to travel out of his way to make a personal attack on him, which certainly reflected very little credit on his good taste, had himself not pointed out any day on which the second reading could be fixed, if postponed from to-night. The fact was, the hon. and learned Gentleman wished to defeat the Bill altogether; but he might have taken a much more fair and manly course in meeting it on proper grounds. He had objected to the appointment of three Judges in Westminster-hall, as not connected with any alteration in the Welsh judicature, but their appointment would be rendered necessary by the removal of the eight Welsh Judges. He did not think the Bill perfect. He did not say it was so, but if the House would allow it to go into a committee, he had no doubt alterations could be made, which would remove every objection. He was quite ready to divide the Bill into two or three bills, if the House desired it; but even that could not be done until they went into committee. Under these circumstances he did not think it necessary to enter into the principle of the Bill, as he felt the House would not do the mea-

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sure the injustice to consent to the learned Gentleman's proposal for adjournment, which was only intended to defeat the Bill in an unfair manner.
Mr. T. P. Williamsdenied that his object in moving the adjournment was to defeat the Bill—his great objection at present was to the lateness of the hour at which it was brought forward.
Mr. F. Lewissaid, that as a Welsh Member he could not agree with the arguments of the other Welsh Members for the postponement of the measure. The House was now called upon to recognize the general principle of the Bill. As far as he had been able to ascertain the opinions of his constituents, they were willing to enter into the consideration of a measure founded on the allegation that it was desirable to make a change in the Welsh judicature; but then it was absolutely necessary that they should be informed what the proposed change was—what sort of judicature it was intended to introduce in lieu of that at present in existence. As the Bill at present stood, that could not be discovered. It was impossible that the measure could meet with their support unless the right hon. and learned Gentleman took an opportunity of stating the outline and detail of the measure which he intended to substitute for the present Welsh judicature. It was impossible to think of subverting the present administration of justice in Wales, and leaving that country exposed to the introduction of no one knew what in its place. Were the counties to be divided? To such a proposition many of the Welsh counties would object. That one which he had the honour to represent disliked parting with the Assize altogether. Let the plan, however, be distinctly explained to the House, and then only could it be fairly pronounced upon. That could only be done in the committee, when the details would be given, and it would depend upon them whether he supported or opposed the Bill.
Colonel Woodwas desirous, as a Member for a Welsh county, of saying a few words on the subject. He had no hesitation in declaring, that it was the decided opinion of the best-informed men, professional and unprofessional, in the county which he had the honour to represent, that the time had arrived, when an alteration ought to be made in the Welsh judicature, and when it ought to be assimilated to that of England. This was not a
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party opinion; it was one which he had formed from a long and deliberate consideration of the subject. But if there were any one measure to which the Welsh were disinclined, it was that which had been proposed by the Law Commissioners, but their plan for dividing the counties, he believed, had been abandoned. There was another proposition which was considered quite as bad; he meant the consolidation with the English counties. To that there were great and serious objections. In the first place, most of the evidence by the lower classes of the people on criminal trials was given in Welsh. He knew that the disinclination of the people to give their evidence in English was attributed not to their ignorance of the language but to prejudice. He would put it, however, to any hon. Gentleman, however familiar with the French language, if he would like to give evidence in that language in France, in a case in which the life of a countryman was concerned? If this were a prejudice, it appeared to him that it was at least a prejudice that ought to be respected. Again, it was highly important that the juries should be Welsh, for an interpreter was a. very inadequate expedient in cases in which the precise meaning of a word or the turn of an expression might involve very serious consequences. That, of itself, was an insuperable objection to the consolidation of Welsh with English counties. He hoped, therefore, that when the Bill came into the committee the right hon. and learned Gentleman would withdraw that provision in it: otherwise he (Colonel Wood) should be under the necessity of taking the sense of the House as to the expediency of expunging the provision by which power was given to his Majesty's Council to consolidate any Welsh county with an English one. Having said this, he would now shortly call the attention of the House to the present state of the judicature in Wales. All admitted that it required amendment, and an amendment which involved the necessity for an Act of Parliament. Even those who advocated the retaining of the Welsh Judges, admitted the evil which resulted from the same judges constantly going the same circuit; and acknowledged that, after a course of years, they must become familiar with parties, or at least that the inhabitants would think that they had become so. That, therefore, was gene-

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rally allowed to be objectionable. The hon. and learned member for Clare proposed to let the eight Welsh Judges be ambulatory every term, and to let them choose their circuits as the English Judges did. But did the hon. and learned member for Clare suppose, that the evil of allowing the Welsh Judges invariably to go the same circuit had not been before discovered, and that a similar remedy had not been before proposed? The fact was, that it was impracticable to adopt that remedy, because, as the Welsh judicature was one of Equity as well as Law, one Judge might, under such circumstances, hear the commencement of a case, while another was called upon to preside over its continuation, and a third to give judgment upon it when finished. The question also arose—who ought to be a Welsh Judge? Some said a practising barrister. To that it was objected, that merely by inserting fictitious names the opinion of a Welsh Judge, in his capacity of barrister, might in that case: be obtained on a cause upon which he would be subsequently required to give his opinion as a Judge. Then, again, there were no retiring pensions to the Welsh Judges: let their personal infirmities be ever so great, they must go on in their judicial capacity to the last. That was an evil which might be obviated by giving them retiring pensions. But would the House of Commons agree to give these retiring pensions, when they could get a better description of Judges by a cheaper process? The great object was, to let the people have cheap justice at their own doors. As the law at present stood, however, the opulent plaintiff had the power to remove a cause to the nearest English county, by laying the damages at above fifty pounds, and, thereby, to put the defendant to a great expense in transporting his witnesses, in some cases above a hundred miles. What he should have no objection to was this, viz., to leave it to his Majesty's Council to send an English Judge into each county town in the North, and another into each county town in South Wales; there to hold an assize as in Westminster-hall. To this it had been objected that there would be no Bar. It would be time enough to make an alteration on that subject whenever the complaint should be actually made. A special retainer might always be given for a special case. By some means or other he had no doubt that barristers would find, their way
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into the courts in question, and that there would soon be enough of them. Of this he was perfectly satisfied, that, as far as his county was concerned, if an assize were held by an English Judge in every county town, all opposition to the measure would cease.
Mr. Harrison Batleymaintained, that it was extremely desirable that the administration of justice in England and Wales should be uniform, and that a measure to render it so should be no longer delayed.
Mr. E. Davenportwas favourable to the principle of the Bill, but was apprehensive that the benefits of it were more than counterpoised by the mischiefs which accompanied it. The hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to give Cheshire the advantage of the Judges of Westminster Hall. So far, Cheshire was extremely obliged to him. It was certainly most desirable to withdraw that rat-trap, the Chief-justice ship of Chester—an office which had been but too frequently the re- ward of a postacy and tergiversation. If, also, the Chief Justice of Chester proved to be worth his purchase, he soon left that post, while, on the other hand, if he turned out a dear bargain, he remained in it for life. One point, however, seemed to him to require explanation. There were three Counties Palatine—Chester, Lancaster, and Durham—placed under nearly the same circumstances; and yet it was proposed to continue their courts to Lancaster and Durham, and to withdraw those of Chester. He wished the hon. and learned Gentleman would show some reason for this. He would not then press upon the House by detailing the privileges of which it was thus proposed exclusively to deprive the County Palatine of Chester; but they were very important; and yet, without the slightest reason assigned, it was proposed to abrogate them; and to substitute expensive and dilatory law at a distance, for cheap and prompt law near at hand. This would be a serious inconvenience; and he trusted that the hon. and learned Gentle- man would allow the County Palatine of Chester, like the other Counties Palatine, to be excused from the operation of his Bill. The petitions, which would presently pour in thickly, would sufficiently apprise him of the general feeling on the subject.
Mr. Joneswas not desirous of any unnecessary delay in the consideration of the measure: when he proposed the adjournment, it was far from being with any

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such view. He had clone so because some hon. Members had gone away who wished to speak on the subject, and because it had been declared too late to bring forward other business, to which the present question did not appear to him to yield in importance. If, however, the House was disposed to go into the discussion, he for one was perfectly ready; but he must protest—[It was here suggested to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the motion before the House was only to read the Order of the Day.—The Order of the Day was accordingly read.]
The Attorney-general moved, "That the Bill be read a second time."
Mr. Jonesresumed—the hon. member for Brecon had talked of the practicability of removing a case to the nearest county. That, however, could not be done without a writ of certiorari; and there had been repeated instances in which the application for such a writ had been refused. Even lately an application had been made to the Lord Chancellor, in a case relating to land, which the Chancellor dismissed, on the ground that the question could be-equally well tried in Carmarthen. He considered the time which had been chosen for bringing in the present Bill extremely improper. The Law Commissioners had conceded that the practice of the Courts at Westminster Hall required complete reform. Surely that reform ought first to be effected, before the English practice, "with all its imperfections on its head," was introduced into Wales. There was another curious point. By the annihilation of the existing Courts in Wales, a great many compensations would be rendered necessary. Now the first step ought to have been to bring in a bill for the purpose of granting those compensations. That had not been done. If the present Bill passed, therefore, many persons who had purchased their places would be deprived of them, and would be thrown on the generosity of the Legislature. He had heard the amount of those compensations estimated at a hundred thousand pounds. Was the principle which it was proposed to adopt worth so large a sum? As to the superior advantages of the English mode of judicature, he was at a loss to perceive them. He had heard a great deal on that point; but it was entirely assertion. Two committees of that House had investigated the subject. Now, with all due deference to the learned Law Commission, he must say,
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that they had not opportunities of obtaining information equal to those which had been enjoyed by the committees. The latter examined witnesses—the former merely proposed queries in writing, to which they obtained answers. Of the treatment of the learned commissioners he had a right to complain in common with others. Fifty queries had been sent to him by the learned commissioners, to which queries he had answered to the best of his judgment, and so much to their satisfaction, apparently, that they sent him a letter of thanks, and fifty more queries, which he answered also. He had not sought the commissioners—they had sought him. What was his surprise, therefore, to find that in the report of the learned commissioners, because he and others differed in opinion from the commissioners, they were described as being either prejudiced or self-interested. If he were so disposed, he might easily retaliate. He might observe, that two of the commissioners were Serjeants at Law, and therefore, that they were interested, because they wished the monopoly of the Common Pleas to be kept up.—He might observe, that others of the commission were interested; because, being on the Northern Circuit, they retained in their Report some of the best towns on that circuit. The fact, however, was, that these learned commissioners were ignorant of all which respected the Principality of Wales. Some of them had never been in Wales; none of them had ever been in a Welsh Court. He found in the Report of these learned Commissioners a memorial, said to be signed by the principal inhabitants of the county of Cardigan. The number of signatures was twenty-three.—Among them he did not find his hon. friend, the representative of the county; he did not find other principal inhabitants; he found the names of four respectable persons, but there were 100 as respectable in the county. But he also found the names of seventeen persons, who were merely fanners and landholders, and whom the learned commissioners, nevertheless, held out as the principal inhabitants of the county. To the memorial from Carmarthen there were the names of five or six persons sent up by the agent of Lord Cawdor; with the remark, that but for the necessity of haste, thousands would have come. When, however, a county meeting was held, only seventeen, hands were held up against the

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petition praying that the proposed abolition of the Welsh Judicature might not be adopted. It was admitted that many parts of the Welsh Judicature were better than the corresponding parts of the English system; and it was said, therefore, let the excellencies of the Welsh Judicature be introduced into the English. He, however, wished to see those excellencies brought into use before the Welsh Judicature should be annihilated. What was to become of the records of Wales, the very props of property in that country? If the present officers were dismissed without remuneration, they, of course, would no longer attend to their preservation. It would also be a great hardship on a prisoner to be removed fifty or sixty miles farther than he was at present obliged to go, and to be tried at a great distance from all his connexions and witnesses. At present, a Welsh suitor could get a judgment signed the instant it was delivered, and as the action might be commenced three weeks before the assizes, all his trouble and anxiety were over before two steps could be taken at Westminster Hall. The cheapness, too, of the Welsh Courts, might be envied by the people of England. Only last year, a sum of 13,000 l. was recovered in Carmarthenshire at the expense of 5l, while, at the very lowest, it would have cost 40 l. in Westminster Hall. An action begun in London in Easter Term, could not obtain a judgment before September or November, leaving a dishonest man at liberty all that time to dispose of his property and make off. He did not expect either, like some Gentlemen, to sec a bar follow this Bill into Wales. The rich might carry down a clever barrister, by a special retainer, but that privilege would necessarily be denied to the poor man. Fines and recoveries also were at present levied and suffered before the Judge of the Great Session—that was very convenient; that would be abolished by the present measure, which substituted no equally convenient contrivance in its stead. With the exception, he believed, of two counties, there had been no petitions from Wales in favour of the Bill; and one of them was from a few persons only, constituting the Grand Jury of one county. He trusted that Ministers would not, therefore, force upon the people of Wales an alteration which they heartily disliked. "It is never prudent," said some wise counsellors to Cromwell," to make needless alterations; because we are
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already acquainted with the consequences of known establishments, and ancient forms; but new methods of administration may produce evils, which the most prudent cannot foresee, nor the most diligent rectify; but least of all, are such changes to be made as draw after them endless alterations, and extend their effects through the whole frame of Government. Long prescription is a sufficient argument in favour of a practice against which nothing can be alleged. Nor is it sufficient to affirm that the change can be made without inconvenience, for change itself is an evil, and ought to be balanced by some equivalent advantage, for bad consequences may arise, though we do not expect them." He trusted that Ministers would comply with that advice, and endeavour to ascertain all the changes which would necessarily follow from their Bill, before they attempted to carry it into effect. At least, he hoped that the present Bill would not be forced upon Wales as a boon, and that Ministers would pause before they annihilated the Welsh judicature.
Mr. C. Wynndid not mean to follow the last speaker through all the details he had gone into, which he thought would form a fitter subject for discussion in the committee. Of the principle of the Bill, he completely approved, though he should wish to have a full explanation of the manner 'in which the Attorney General meant to carry it into effect. The principle was, to complete the union between England and Wales, and give to Wales the benefit of English judicature. At present it was impossible to obtain Welsh Judges without paying them salaries far exceeding the duties they performed. They only executed their offices three weeks in summer, and three weeks in autumn, and for this duty they were paid their whole annual salary, the country deriving no other advantage from them but the little duty they performed in those six weeks. Now he thought, that the only way to make a Judge efficient was, to give him constant employment; for unless he had constant employment, he was likely to forget whatever legal knowledge he might once have possessed. What his hon. friend (Colonel Wood) had said about the power of a rich suitor instituting his cause in one of the Courts of Westminster, had been completely misunderstood. His hon. friend did not mean that the suitor could remove his cause to

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the Courts in Westminster after it had begun to be heard in Wales, but that he could, if he chose, commence his action at once at Westminster. The hon. Member concluded by saying, that the Bill had been drawn up hastily, and that more time was necessary for its consideration. He, however, thought that the Bill ought to be allowed to pass the present stage, because it was on every hand admitted, that the appointment of the Welsh Judges should not be made in the manner it now was.
Mr. Rice Trevorsaid, there were obviously great inaccuracies in the Bill before the House; and perhaps it would hereafter assume a very different shape; but he was bound to deal with the Bill as it stood, and so dealing with it, he must declare that he had insurmountable objections to it. It was said, that it was impossible to have three new Judges added to the twelve in Westminster Hall, unless the Welsh Judicature were given up, and so it was to be sacrificed for that change; but he could assure the House that the Principality did not think the change any benefit. It was then stated, that Wales could not, under the present system, have Judges such as she ought to have; but he begged to refer the House to the list of eminent Judges who had distinguished that country, and he would then ask if that assertion was true, If the Government chose to exert itself to find men competent to fill the situation of Welsh Judges, he had no doubt it would find, among the rising members of the bar, a sufficient number of individuals of talent to fill those situations. The removal of the Courts of Judicature would be a great inconvenience and additional expense to all parties concerned in law proceedings. The commissioners said, in their Report, that those who had local interests were not to be chiefly consulted; but if the House were legislating for Yorkshire or Kent, would it not appeal to the members for those counties? He was not one of those who thought very cheap law likely to be beneficial, particularly to the Welsh, who were very litigious; but certainly it ought not to be too dear, nor ought such impediments to be thrown in the way of administering justice, as to give the rich a monopoly of the Courts. Even the cost of letters backwards and forwards, between Wales and Westminster Hall would be found no inconsiderable expense—not
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much less, probably, than the cost of a suit in the Welsh Courts. Additional expense also would be caused, both to the petty and grand jurors, while the latter would probably lose the opportunity they now possessed to consult over matters that might be useful to their country. He felt himself bound to press these matters, even at that late hour, because they had all been insisted on in a petition he had lately presented to the House. He would not then, however, enter further into the subject; he would only express his hope, that the idea of cutting up or consolidating the Welsh counties, for the apprehension of that had given rise to much hostility towards the present Bill, would be given up.
The Attorney Generalcould not help admitting that the Bill, in its present state, was very imperfect, but this imperfection arose from the mistake of the printers. Corrections had been made in the margin of the draft of the Bill, which the printer had forgotten to attend to. His design was, to have the Bill read a second time to-night, and to go into a Committee fro forma. He would wish the principles to be discussed when the Bill should be recommitted; and on that occasion he would only state sufficient to prevent the object he had in view from being misunderstood, which was, to put the administration of justice in both countries on the same footing; to allow the Judges of the superior courts to administer justice in Wales, and to make the. King's writs travel there as widely as the wants of the population required them. That was the great object of the Bill, and the collateral regulations it contained were calculated to promote, not retard, the attainment of the principal object. It was perhaps natural that those who thought that multiplying the instruments of justice in every town was the best way to carry justice home to every man's door, should oppose the Bill. He could easily imagine, when it was proposed to make the metropolis the great centre of the administration of justice, whence circuits should proceed over the whole kingdom, administering justice on one uniform principle, that those who liked local jurisdictions, and were attached to the ancient system which existed in the Welsh counties, would be hostile to the alteration. In fact, they were so much attached to their own views, that they proposed to make the English system

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assimilate to the Welsh. He, however, wished to combine the system, as he proposed to do in the Bill. He wished to abrogate a number of separate jurisdictions, to have a new circuit, and to make such alterations as would make the administration of justice uniform. He proposed, among other things, to abridge the interval between the different terms, so as to afford means more rapidly to despatch causes. Some Gentlemen wished that the Bill should be divided into two parts, one declaratory of the principle, the other regulating the details, and at first that was his own view; but on further contemplating the subject, he found so much difficulty in separating one part from the other that he preferred uniting both into one measure. One hon. and learned Member said, the Bill was intended only to accommodate the Judges; but he knew no bill in which the Judges were less personally considered. It imposed on them more duly than ever was imposed on them, either by the injunctions of the law, or the practice of the Courts. It would abridge their vacation between Hilary and Michaelmas Terms, and between Trinity and Easter Terms, several days, so that they would have to perform their functions from November to the end of August, or the beginning of September, with no other vacation than a few days in December and the month of October. The hon. member for Carmarthen had attempted to undervalue the measure by saying that it was supported by nothing but the recommendations of the commissioners; but he really could not see that the force of that argument applied against the Bill. For who were these commissioners? They were gentlemen of the greatest learning in their profession, without the slightest tincture of partiality, and able to conduct such an inquiry to a correct conclusion. The House, must decide whether or not it would take the recommendations of such men for their guide. The hon. and learned Member, however, assured the House, that the great mass of the population of Wales was in favour of retaining their present Courts; but his own impression was, that the majority of the intelligent part of the people of the Principality were in favour of some alteration. They might differ as to what the alteration ought to be, and therefore the House, having no guide in the different opinions of the people, must determine whether or not it
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would follow the recommendation, of the commissioners. The praise which had been bestowed on the process of levying fines and suffering recoveries in the Welsh counties was, in his opinion, rather misplaced; for a simpler and shorter method of proceeding was adopted in the Court of Common Pleas, and suitors he was sure, would derive great benefit from the change. He admitted that the Bill at present provided no place for keeping records, but that omission might be supplied, and means taken both to preserve them, and give all parties interested a ready access to them. Objections had been taken to the Bill because it did not provide compensation for those whose interests or rights might be injured by it; but to those objections he would reply, that the principle of the Bill did not go to that object. This must be provided for by some other measure; and he was willing to admit that means ought to be devised to-remunerate those who had a freehold in their offices, as had been done on former and similar occasions. The Bill did not regulate the appointment of Sheriffs, as some hon. Members seemed to suppose, but it provided for the incorporation of Welsh counties to form an Assise. It had been said, however, that if three counties were thus incorporated, there would be only one Sheriff, and what then, it was asked, would be done at an election, when Members wore to be returned for different counties? To this he replied, that the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon had only one Sheriff, and yet two elections were often held in them, and by a very simple process. The Sheriff sent his deputy to preside at one hustings, while he himself superintended the business at the other: the same might be done in Wales. The sheriff might have two or throe deputies, or under-sheriffs, and as they were now generally professional men, they would be more competent to the performance of such duties than the Sheriffs themselves. It had also been objected to the Bill, that it would cause a considerable increase of trouble to grand and petty jurors, who would have to travel a considerable distance to the Assize town. This objection was perhaps unfounded. As the law formerly stood, each county had to furnish twenty-one gentlemen to act as grand jurors; but by the Bill, that number would be supplied by three counties, so that only seven would

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come from each county. The labour would, therefore, be diminished, not increased. There would also be another advantage. At present it was sometimes difficult to find a proper person to fill the office of High Sheriff in the small counties, and by having three counties to select from, the chances of obtaining a proper person to fill this important office, would be multiplied. He knew that no changes could be made, even with a view to attain some practical good, without suffering some inconvenience; and being desirous to make the Bill as satisfactory as possible to all parties, he should propose, after the Bill had been committed, that it should be re-committed, and printed with all the details, and proposed alterations, in order to give ample time to discuss every clause. When that was done, he was persuaded that many of the difficulties now in the way of the Bill would be obviated, and then he hoped he should have the good fortune to convince Gentlemen of its justice and its advantages, and obtain their support. It had been asked, why should not each county have its Great Sessions; but he might ask, why should each district be subject to a different jurisdiction, regulated by different rules? In the County Palatine of Chester there is a Court of Chancery; but in twenty-five years, only four causes had been brought before that Court; and the learned Judge who presided in it was quite free from those reproaches concerning an accumulation of business which were heaped on other courts of Equity. The great argument in favour of these local tribunals was their antiquity; which was, he admitted, a venerable authority; but not always conclusive in matters of government and legislation, in which changes of circumstances frequently compelled alterations. He was aware that each Assize town derived some benefit from the Assizes being held in it; in Lancaster, for example, which was perhaps the most inconvenient town for holding the Assizes in all Lancashire, there were many persons who would object to another town being selected, because they would suffer by the change, though the whole county would be benefited. Thus a complaint had been made by the people of Anglesey against the removal of the local jurisdiction from their town, which would lessen their business a little. In four years, however, there had been only three causes
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tried in Anglesey, so that it was plain that these complaints were not dictated by any views of the public interest, but of private advantage. Such complaints therefore ought not to have much weight with the Legislature, when they were directed against a measure which promised to be of great benefit to the public: at all events, he hoped that the Bill might be read a second time, and he should be ready in the committee to make the details as palatable as possible consistently with preserving, the great principle of the measure, that of regulating the administration of justice on one uniform principle throughout the country.
Sir John Owencould assure the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the sense of the majority of the inhabitants of the Principality was against his proposed measure; and he could also assure him that the advantage he expected to obtain in the nomination of proper persons to serve the office of Sheriff, would be of trifling moment, for at present there was no difficulty in procuring gentlemen of character and suitable station to serve that high office.
Mr. Owen Williamsconcurred with the hon. Baronet, and felt himself obliged to oppose the Bill.
Mr. Humeinquired if the hon. and learned Gentleman meant to continue the clause respecting arrests for debt; and if he did not, would he bring in any measure on that subject during the present Session?
The Attorney Generalsaid, he knew that many persons were of opinion that arrests for debt should not take place for small sums, but he had not included the clause his hon. friend alluded to in this Bill. He had refrained from doing so, not as objecting to the principle it involved, but in consequence of some communications with gentlemen out of doors. A suggestion had also been thrown out, which he thought deserved attention, as it might prevent individuals from resisting the payment of just debts; that was, to make debts bear a legal interest. A clause he thought might be drawn to protect creditors against vexatious opposition; but whether or not he should introduce any general measure on this subject during the Session, must depend on the state of business in the House.
Mr. Broughamrose merely to defend the Law Commissioners from the charge

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which the hon. member for Carmarthen had, he was convinced, under some misapprehension of their Report, made against them. That hon. Member had remarked, that in laying out the plan of new circuits, those learned persons, who were chiefly attached to the Northern Circuit, had taken great care to keep all the great towns in that Circuit. Now this was altogether erroneous, for they had actually recommended that either Liverpool or Manchester should be taken from it. The Commissioners certainly had not consulted the convenience or the profit of the profession, for they had proposed that the Assizes for the county of York should be held both at Wake field and York; and that the Assizes for Lancashire should also be held at two places, thus materially augmenting the trouble of the Bar, without adding to its emoluments. The commissioners had also recommended an alteration of the Terms. The interval between Michaelmas and Hilary Terms at present generally extended from December 24th to January 23rd, and this interval the commissioners recommended should be reduced to ten days. They also recommended that the intervals between the other Terms should be shortened, leaving to the Judges, and to all professional men, barely time enough to keep up their knowledge of the law, to read the reports of cases which had been decided in courts where they do not practise, or at which they had not been able to attend. It was impossible for any man to do that with but three weeks vacation in the whole year. His last vacation was only three weeks, and he believed no gentleman who went the Northern Circuit ever had a longer time than that for relaxation, and for studying: business usually commenced about the 18th of October one year, and continued till the 20th of September the following year; and the interval between those periods was the only time allowed to recover from the fatigues of an arduous and laborious profession. If that system be continued, professional men must necessarily abandon every other species of literature, every other kind of learning; lawyers would do nothing from year's end to year's end but draw pleas, and address juries; and would be not very competent to fill the high office of Judge; though it was from them alone the Judges could be selected. With respect to the Bill, it had his entire concurrence—and seeing in it nothing at all in-
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consistent with the plan he should shortly submit to the House, to bring home justice to every man's door, he should give it his support.
Mr. O'Connellthought this a piebald, patched-up measure, which would do no good whatever. Me objected to it on the very ground that the Attorney General supported it. He approved of local jurisdictions, and thought it was a great evil to have all law and all justice confined to Westminster Hall.
Bill read a second time.