Commons Sitting of 4 July 1836

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a third time:—Murderers Execution; Bills of Exchange.—Read a second time:—Personal Tithes; Benefices Plurality.—Read a first time:—Hand loom Weavers.
Petitions presented. By Mr. BROTHERTON, from various Places, against Factories' Act Amendment Bill.—By Mr. TOWNLEY, from Wisbeach, against Secular Jurisdiction (York and Ely) Bill—By Mr. PEASE, from Caltwry, for Abolition of Tithe on Fish.—By Sir EDWARD CODRING TON, from Devonport, for a Repeal of the Act 58th George 3rd, for Regulation of Parish Vestries.—By Mr. HESKETH FLEETWOOD, from Poulton and Thornton, for Repeal of the Bastardy Clause.—By Mr. HARVEY, from the Pro prietors of Licensed Beer Houses, Rochford, Southwark, and Eastern Half Hundred of Brixton, to be placed on the same footing as Licensed Victuallers.—By Mr. RIDLEY COLBORNE, from the Procurator-General, Bath and Wells, for Compensation. —By Mr. JAMES OSWALD and the ATTORNEY-GENERAL, from Edinburgh, for Acceleration of the Mail.—By several HON. MEMBERS, from various Places, for Amendment of Municipal Corporations' (Scot land) Bill.—By Mr. DUNLOP, from Beith and Kilmauni, against Burghs of Barony (Scotland) Bill.—By several HON. MEMBERS, from various Places, praying the House to adhere to the Irish Municipal Corporation Reform Bill as originally passed by them.—By Mr. S. CRAWFORD, from Dundalk and Inniskeen, for Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Bill.—By Mr. H. FLEETWOOD, from Preston, for Abolition of Beer Shops.—By -Mr. Alderman THOMPSON and Mr. FORT, from Sunderland and Chipping Camp den, for Abolition of Church Rates.— By two HON. MEMBERS, from various Places, against Church Bill (Ireland.) —By Mr. HAWKINS, from Newport, for Amendment of Municipal Corporations' Act.— By the ATTORNEY GENERAL, from Edinburgh, for Abolition of Annuity Tax. —By Mr. HARVEY, from the Medical Profession, Colchester, for Medical Witnesses' Bill.—By Mr. S. CRAW FORD, from Bangor, against Excise Licences (Ireland).

IMPROVEMENTS IN LIGHT-HOUSES.
Mr. Warburtonpresented a petition from Mr. Michael Donavon, complaining of the conduct of the Trinity-house Corporation towards him in regard to a new method which he has invented for the lighting of light-houses. The petitioner stated, that an experiment of his invention had been made at the South Foreland Light-house, and that he had been employed himself there for three months; and he further stated, that the Trinity-house had distinctly acknowledged to him that his invention

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was a valuable one, which must lead to very important improvements in the existing system of light-houses. It appeared from the statement of the petitioner, that his invention consisted in the employment of refracting lenses, instead of reflecting mirrors, with oil lights. The hon. Member stated, that the Report of the engineer of the Trinity-house Corporation spoke in high terms of the invention of the petitioner. The petitioner also stated, that having been thus for three months employed at the South Foreland, the light house keeper sent up a Report to the Trinity Board that an explosion had taken place, and that the light-house had caught fire. The petitioner complained that no opportunity had been afforded him of being confronted with that person; that he had been at considerable expense in fitting up his apparatus, &c, and prayed the House to take his case into consideration. He would wait until he heard the explanation of the hon. Member opposite, an elder brother of the Trinity-house, Mr. A. Chapman, before he would decide on what steps he might hereafter take in regard to this question.
Mr. Aaron Chapmandefended the con duct of the Trinity Corporation, and maintained that they had acted most generously towards the petitioner. Certainly an explosion had taken place, by which the lights were at once extinguished, and he called upon hon. Gentlemen to consider what might have been the effect had any of his Majesty's ships or any merchant vessels been in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin Sands at the time. The Trinity Corporation had undoubtedly promised this individual to pay him any sum that might be required in making an experimental trial of his new light, and acting upon that feeling, they had given him I 00 l. for his model, and 350 l. more for his own time; and on an application being made by him for further remuneration, they conveyed to him an intimation of their readiness to meet his demand, provided it was anything within reason, but the demand made by him was so exorbitant, that they felt they should be guilty of a gross dereliction of their duty to the public to entertain it for a moment, In conclusion the hon. Member remarked, that this Gentleman seemed offended that his invention had not been adopted in preference to those of others, such as Lieutenant Drummond, and other gentlemen of certainly equally high scientific character and pretensions.
Mr. Warburtouobserved, that the explanation of the hon. Gentleman was not satisfactory, and thought that the Trinity-house should have erected an experimental light-house on shore, by which without incurring any risk, the advantages of the new invention might be put to the test until the discovery was perfected.
Petition to He on the Table.

CROWN LAND—RADNOR.
Mr. Harveysaid, he had a petition to present from certain persons who felt themselves aggrieved by a statement made in that House by his Majesty's Attorney-General on a former occasion, when he (Mr. Harvey) presented a petition from those parties, complaining of the conduct of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in reference to the disposal of certain manors in the county of Radnor. The Attorney-General said, that they were instigated to take the course they had adopted by an attorney of the name of Parsons. The petitioners stated, that so far from Mr. Parsons having instigated them to take that course, they had applied to him in the regular course of business to defend and conduct their case. He begged also to present a petition signed by several persons in the county of Radnor, complaining that the manors in that county had been sold in a way very disadvantageous to the public. Since the former discussion on this subject, he (Mr. Harvey) had learned that on the manor which was sold to Mr. Watt for 1,200 l. that Gentleman had, by intimidation and other means, succeeded in getting seventy poor persons to attorn the little properties which they held to the amount of 200 acres, upon which several of them had built cottages, and which they had possessed for twenty or thirty years free and unmolested. Now, cheap as land was in Wales, the property thus gained by Mr. Watt was at least worth 1,200 l. He thought that these petitioners had a right to complain that those manors belonging to the public were not disposed of by public auction.
The Speakerbegged to call the hon. Member's attention to the first paragraph in the first petition he had presented. The petitioners stated, that "having read with astonishment a statement made in the House of Commons, &c.;" he submitted to the hon. Member that such a petition could not be received.
The Attorney-Generalsaid, that he, for one, would take no objection to the reception of the petition, though certainly the

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objection started by the Speaker could not be got over. With regard to the statement he had made on a former occasion, he would only repeat, that he received his information from a quarter to which the greatest credit was due, and that he had no reason to doubt a single word of the information he had thus received. Indeed, he was since informed, that a great number of the names to the former petition had been actually n the handwriting of Mr. Parsons.
Mr. Harveysaid, that so gross a charge against a gentleman, a highly respectable attorney and a banker, in his own town, could not of course have been made by the Attorney-General upon light grounds. The learned Gentleman must have some reason for believing it. He (Mr. Harvey) most undoubtedly did not believe it, and if the gentleman so accused should write to him (Mr. Harvey) demanding an investigation, he would certainly move that he be examined at the bar on the subject.
The first Petition withdrawn.
Sir E. Codringtonsaid, Mr. Watt had bought this property for 5,000 l., and that he had not benefited by it a single shilling. The proceedings complained of had not been taken by Mr. Watt, but by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who were obliged to complete their bargain with him.
Second Petition laid on the Table.

CHURCH AND TITHE(IRELAND) COM MITTEE.
Viscount Morpethmoved the Order of the Day for the House to resolve itself into a Committee on the Church and Tithes Ireland Bill.
On the question that the Speaker leave the Chair,
Sir George Sinclairrose, not for the purpose of discussing the principles or examining the provisions of this Bill, but in order to denounce the disingenuous and evasive course pursued by his Majesty's Ministers respecting the clause which was now to be considered in Committee—a course, which though entitled to high commendation as a model of astuteness and dexterity, was, in his opinion, totally at variance with the dictates of candour and straightforwardness. "Five months have now elapsed," said the hon. Baronet, "since the Session commenced. The introduction of this measure, upon which the Government grounded their chief claim to public confidence, and for which they were so clamourously impatient when seated on the opposition benches, was de-
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ferred until the latest possible moment; and after sundry bit and bit postponements, the Bill may be considered as once more virtually abandoned, because it is reluctantly dragged forward for commitment under a perfect conviction that it cannot possibly pass; and that his Majesty's Ministers have not the power, even if they possessed the inclination, to adopt the means which are essential for ensuring its success. Did any statesmen ever lay themselves more open to the charge of palpable tergiversation, or more unscrupulously kicked down the only ladder by which they could have clambered into place? "None but themselves can be their parallel;" and we must take a retrospective view of their last year's devices, to find a somewhat analogous illustration of their present proceedings. The Appropriation Clause, though instantly "sent to Coventry," until the 26th of June, was sanctioned, by a majority, I think, on (he 6th of April. I myself suggested to this House the propriety of at once transmitting the resolution to the House of Peers, in order to ascertain whether, as the noble Lord affected to believe, they would ratify the principle, or whether as I ventured to assert, they would reject, it with indignation. This would have been a manly and consistent course, but the noble Lord prudentially declined to adopt it; he shrank from the experiment of bringing the question to so speedy and decisive an issue. An usually protracted recess, a very favourite expedient of his Majesty's Ministers, almost immediately supervened. After banns had been proclaimed in the usual form by the Secretary of the Treasury, his Majesty's Ministers were formally re-married to their official brides, from whom in the preceding gloomy month of November, they had been suddenly and reluctantly divorced—
"priscus amor redit,
Diductosque jugo cogit aheneo."
They then retired, to pass at their respective country seats, the halcyon days of the honey moon. Next occurred the catastrophe of the Devonshire election. The tutelary genius of Great Britain and Ireland was for a short time obscured by a temporary eclipse. Nothing could be done whilst the noble Lord was out of Parliament; cum tot sustineasac tanta negotia solus. The Government resembled a time-piece, whose evolutions have been put a stop to by the un expected rupture of the main spring—but

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that defect was speedily supplied by the able mechanics of Stroud, and another important wheel was instantly furnished by the accommodating artizans of Tiverton. We might, therefore, have ventured to hope that although the Ministerial machine might now and then have required to be wound up or set right, it would have performed its future movements with precision and regularity. The whole country was lost in amazement at the course pursued by the Government. The noble Lord being called upon to adjust the conflicting claims to priority between English Municipal Reform and the consideration of the Irish Tithe Question, was guilty of a palpable solecism in the heraldry of politics, by adjudging precedence to the former. Can any impartial judge confirm the noble Lord's decision? Was there, in point of urgency, the most remote comparison between these questions? But, then, it was manifest that the Government would strengthen their own hands, and secure their own tenure of office, and, therefore, "the clergy starve, that Ministers may dine." If the prominence which the two measures respectively occupied in the colloquial intercourse of private life might be assumed as a standard for estimating their relative importance, I should say, that for one quidnunc who ever broached the subject of corporate abuses, there were at least fifty anxiously inquiring from day to day, "Well, pray when does the Irish Tithe Question come on?—have you heard what Ministers mean to do with regard to the appropriation clause? "After several intervening weeks of silence and procrastination, the answer to the last interrogatory uniformly was—" Do? why they mean to do nothing at all. The clause, you may rest assured, will henceforth be a mere brutum fulmen, now that it has fairly answered its purpose of ousting a rival Ad ministration." Some persons likened it to an old hat suspended on the top of a pole half enveloped in a tattered red jacket, with a rude wooden musket in its right hand, and a clumsy old broomstick in its left, and stationed in the middle of the Treasury Gar dens, to scare away the whole feathered tribe of the Tories, and preventing any un welcome intermeddlers from nibbling any portion of its golden fruit. Others, again, com pared it to a train of artillery, brought up for the purpose of compelling some obstinate fortress to surrender, but which is quietly re placed in the arsenal as soon as the garrison
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capitulated and marched out with all the honours of war. No one indeed, either thought then, or can imagine now, that the principle would ever be formally avowed and openly abandoned by his Majesty's Ministers, or that they could, without a total loss of character, resort to any expedient for shaking it off; but is there any essential difference between such ignominious inconsistency and the annual reiteration of the Machiavelian farce of postponing the question until the fag-end of the Session, when most of the Members of both Houses are out of town, out of health, or out of patience; so that discomfiture may be instantly succeeded and palliated by a convenient prorogation of Parliament—a discomfiture, permit me to ob serve, which his Majesty's Ministers endure with philosophic equanimity, and indeed with a display of every virtue under heaven, except that of a becoming resignation. But their design manifestly is to make the two ends of the Session meet as soon as possible, so as to secure to themselves the disbursement of the loaves and fishes during the recess. Not with standing the late plentiful harvest of mitres, more bishoprics may be dropping in, judicial situations may become vacant, the monthly obituary of general officers is usually most prolific during the autumn; in this way, it is more than probable that the gaping mouths of many Ultra-Whig Cerberuses, whether lay or clerical, legal or military, may be stopped, or rather sopped, before Parliament meets again. Never were Utopian simpletons more palpably the dupes of their own credulity than those who fondly imagined that the age of influence, like that of chivalry, is past; that the era of economists and calculators had succeeded, and that the glory of patronage was extinguished for ever. Why, Sir, the very system is openly avowed to be one of the principal engines for maintaining Ministers in office. There never was a period in our history, when offices of every description were so eagerly grasped and so tenaciously monopolized by those who subscribed to all the articles of a certain political creed, and when the decisions of the Government in this department were watched by jealous supporters with such lively and lynx-eyed vigilance. It is become almost a sine qua non even for admission into the magistracy, that every candidate should be faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty's Ministers, as well as to his Majesty

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himself. It must, however, be admitted, that with regard to the distribution of official patronage, his Majesty's Ministers, though much to be blamed, are, perhaps, still more to be pitied. There are amongst them some who, if left to themselves, are not indisposed to be liberal, in the old and obsolete acceptation of the term—that is to say, not harsh, not unkind, not ungenerous, not exclusive; but they are in a state of abject and ignominious vassalage to imperious and importunate partisans: and, above all, to a ruthless and rapacious press, without whose countenance and co-operation neither their places nor their popularity would be worth a fortnight's purchase. Of them it may be said as of the Jews in Egypt, that their lives are made bitter by hard bondage. The grasping greediness of their satellites out of doors is become a by-word and a reproach in every district throughout the empire. They are beset, besieged, and bullied, by a countless legion of hornets, harpies, and horse-leeches, vociferating without intermission, not only, "Give, give to us," but "Take away, take away from every one besides." If the power of these inquisitorial autocrats were commensurate with their vindictive avidity, they would, without ceremony, distinction, or remorse, rend the coif from every Tory judge, and snatch the mitre from every Tory bishop, and cashier every Tory Lord-lieutenant, and dismiss every Tory public functionary, however blameless his conduct, however amiable his character, however eminent his deserts, however moderate his political opinions. If a war were to break out, his Majesty's Ministers could not venture to intrust the command of an army to so incorrigible a Tory as the Duke of Wellington. Had Lord Nelson been spared to his country until now, and possessed Conservative politics, it would have been an act of high treason against the exclusive spirit of ultra Whiggism out of doors, and as much as their places were worth to have placed him at the head of a fleet—for, if we may judge from the sentiments embodied in sundry Ministerial publications, there are not a few politicians in this country, whose zeal outstrips their patriotism, and who would rather that a British squadron were defeated under a Radical commander, than that a Conservative admiral achieved a triumph. The public mind, however, cannot long be deludel by the flimsy pre tensions of pseudo patriots. We know that selfishness is the banner under which they subsist; and that slander is the garbage
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upon which they luxuriate. But no can did or well-regulated mind can remember without honest indignation the foul and atrocious aspersions with which his right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth, was assailed by reckless libellers during his brief but brilliant career as Prime Minister of the empire. He was told that no man regretted so much as he did the necessity of being virtuous; that he ought, by a timely retirement, to save the wreck of his former character. To the eager partisans of revolution throughout the realm it was announced, with ferocious exultation, that not only his physical strength, but his mental energy, was sinking under an accumulated weight of solicitude and responsibility. And this, for sooth, was proclaimed, as a cause for natural gratulation, with respect to the very individual who, a few weeks thereafter, on his lamented and ominous retirement from office, was not only honoured by hundreds of thousands of his disinterested and intelligent countrymen with the loudest and most unequivocal assurances of their confidence and gratitude, but has since had what some would account the honour, but what he, perhaps, deemed the misfortune, to be eulogised and quoted as an authority by his Majesty's Ministers them selves. I would observe, in conclusion, that a great majority of the religious, enlightened, and wealthy classes, view the intentions of his Majesty's Ministers with alarm, and their principles with disapprobation. They long to see a Government formed under the auspices of my right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth, and my noble Friend, the Member for Lancashire—a Government which, whilst zealously engaged in temperately reforming all abuses, would at the same time maintain the institutions of the country inviolate and unimpaired. I do believe that if any member of the present Cabinet had been assured a few years ago that he would be concerned in some of the measures now in progress, and that the ablest and most indispensable of its' supporters would gravely enrol in the books a notice for reforming, or rather for degrading, the House of Lords, he would have exclaimed, like Hazael, when told by the prophet that he would perpetrate a crime of which he at that time deemed himself incapable, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" To what still more desperate extremities they hereafter may be urged, to proceed in the headlong career of

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their ambition, I shall not attempt to prognosticate; but, in my humble judgment, the whole system of their present policy, both foreign and domestic, is much more calculated to prevent, than competent to promote, "the advancement of God's glory, the good of his church, the safety, honour, and welfare of our Sovereign and his dominions."
The House went into Committee on the Bill.
On Clause 50, enacting the appointment of the Ecclesiastical Committee of the Privy Council,
Lord Mahonsaid, Sir, the preceding clauses of this Bill are of such a nature that, discussed in a spirit of fair and mutual concession, they might be probably adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties. But the Committee has now arrived at a point of principle, and, on the fullest and calmest consideration I have been able to give it, and with the most anxious wish to see this question settled, these dissensions appeased,—I must say that the question of the inalienability of Church property is one that admits of no compromise, of no concession. On this principle, therefore, do we take our stand; and on this do I feel myself bound to move, that this, and the following clause, be omitted from the Bill. Sir, in the course of these discussions the arguments of those who advocate a diversion from the revenues of the Irish Church, may, I think, be classed under two heads. It has been alleged by some, that the Irish Church establishment is, or has been, so negligent and inattentive to the duties connected with it, that it does not deserve the same consideration as the Church of England. Others, without having recourse to these attacks, rest their objection solely on the great disproportion of numbers between the Protestant followers of that Church, and the Roman Catholic population. I think that all the arguments we have heard belong to one or the other of these two. Now, with regard to the first, I am not prepared to assert, that the Church of Ireland has been at all times free from blame; I fear that, on the contrary, if we look to earlier periods, we shall find that serious charges of negligence and remissness could, with justice, have been brought against it; and I derive this opinion, not merely from the positive testimonies which have been alleged to that effect, but from the following consideration. In common with a great majority of this House, I believe that the cause of the
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Protestant religion is the cause of truth. I believe, also, that the people of Ireland are fully as intelligent and acute as the people of Great Britain. To what cause then, can I ascribe the slow diffusion of what I believe to be the truth amongst a people which I know to be intelligent, whilst the same truth has so triumphantly prevailed in England and in Scotland? Why, Sir, I am driven,—reluctantly driven, —to the belief that the cause must be ascribed in some degree, at least, to the negligence and inefficiency at that time of the Irish Church Establishment.
But, Sir, is this the case now? Were the causes of this inefficiency of a temporary or a permanent nature, may not this inefficiency be traced most clearly as a natural effect of the old penal laws, under which the Roman Catholics suffered? Those unhappy Statutes set up an in super able barrier between the Protestant and Roman Catholic population of that country —bound together the Catholics by the common tie of persecution, and checked the Protestant clergy in all their attempts to gain the confidence and lore of their parishioners. Can we wonder, then,—I put it in candour to the honourable Gentlemen opposite,—that, in many cases, the Protestant clergy should have been discouraged and disheartened—have flagged in exertions which they have always found unavailing, and too frequently forsook the benefices, where they found themselves the objects of popular ill will? In like manner, as the conversion of Connaught and Munster was checked in the 16th and 17th centuries, by the lawless habits and separate language of the people; so in the 18th century, it was prevented by the penal laws, which only irritated and estranged those whom it was intended to restrain. Such, Sir, was the cause, and such was the effect; and it will be found, that in the same proportion as the cause has been re moved, the effect has ceased. In the same proportion as these laws have fallen one by one, before the rising spirit of the age before the benevolent efforts of such men as Mr. Burke—in that very same proportion have the Protestant clergy become more constant in their residence, more assiduous in their cares, more eminent in every acquirement, that can add lustre to their sacred office. I am firmly persuaded, that there does not now exist upon the earth a body of clergy more pious—more irreproachable — more eminent, both for virtue and learning, than the suffering

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Church of Ireland. Any honourable Member who thinks that he ought to deal with it as with a corrupt church, would, I am convinced, be legislating for the past and not for the present. This is frequently the case—the cry against an abuse continues long after the abuse itself has been removed. The cry continues—it becomes triumphant—and then it happens that the innocent suffer for the guilty! Any legislation which you would carry on in this spirit against the Irish Church, amounts to this:—That an excellent and irreproachable clergyman, in 1836, is to suffer, because his predecessors some sixty years ago happened to be careless! I believe, from all the information I have heard, that if any honourable Member will look at the Irish clergy with the spirit of a juror, and with a determination to do justice, he will, at the close of his inquiry, with his hand upon his heart, bring in a verdict of "Not Guilty."
But then, Sir, I come to the second point. Say some persons, the grievance we com plain of is independent of the conduct of the Irish clergy; it rests on the anomaly as to the great proportion of the Catholic population. There are less than 1,000,000 of the Established Church; there are above 6,000,000 of Roman Catholics; and this they urge is a monstrous anomaly. Why, in the first place, let me ask, how far is this consistent with the demand for perfect assimilation between the two countries? Have we already forgot the debate on the Corporation Bill? How many days is it since the walls of this House rang with the indignant outcry that Ireland should be treated precisely on the same principles as Devonshire or Yorkshire? Now, then, let me put this case: supposing some parish in Yorkshire or Devonshire, in which the majority of inhabitants are Dissenters; and that they should call, on that ground, for a division of Church property, how would such a demand be received by the House or by the country? Would the House think of admitting such a claim? Now, then, if Ireland is to be governed in all respects as an integral part of Great Britain, we must consider not merely the 6,000,000 of Catholics in the former, but the 16,000,000 of Protestants in the latter, and establish a church for the majority of the whole. Is not this fairly following out your own principle? Or do you think it reasonable to assert a principle just so far as may suit your purpose,
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and quietly discard it the moment it has served your turn? But, Sir, I do not meet the question on this ground. I, for one, do not maintain the fantastic notion of perfect assimilation. I am not a political Procrustes; my object is to legislate for the good and happiness of the people; and if any portion of the people be in a peculiar situation, I am not to be deterred by any cant of assimilation from legislating for that portion in a different manner. Well, then, I take the case as to Ireland only. I am told that it is a great anomaly to have a Church of 1,500,000 of Protestants established amongst 6,000,000 of Catholics. I admit that it is an anomaly; but let me ask, does the Bill, does the Appropriation Clause, now before us, remove, or attempt to remove that anomaly? Not at all. Your clause goes to take away a part of the revenues of the Church, but the anomaly consists in the existence of an Established Church at all under such circumstances. If your objection means any thing, it means this—not that the super structure is too rich, but that the foundation is unsound. Are you, then, prepared to root out the Protestant Establishment in Ireland? Why, if I were even to ask the question of the right hon. Gentle men opposite, they would resent it as a positive insult, and most properly declare themselves determined to maintain the existence of that Establishment as firmly as ourselves. Why, then, Sir, is it honourable—is it statesman-like, to declare that to be an abuse which you yourselves admit it is just and necessary to maintain? I admit that the Church of Ireland is an anomaly,—I utterly deny that it is an abuse. As long as I have a seat in this House, I shall protest against the tendency of the present times to confound together the two ideas of anomaly and abuse—of alteration and amendment. There are many and great anomalies that are not abuses:—for example, property itself— that institution for which all other institutions may be said to exist, and which is the foundation of all society,—even properly is liable to very great anomalies. Can there be a grosser anomaly, in theory, than that one man, perhaps of the worst character, should revel upon 50,000 acres, whilst another man, perhaps of the highest merit, has not a hovel wherein to lay his head? Yet, in practice, does any man propose to interfere with property, and correct those anomalies? The Throne

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also, or the Peerage—for they both depend on the same principle, that is, hereditary right to a portion of authority—may often lead to anomalies, from the character of any one to whom that authority descends. But are the Throne or Peerage, therefore to be called abuses? Thus, also, the Irish Church is an anomaly, but not an abuse; and depend upon it that, in spite of any apparent anomaly, the British Constitution confers such solid benefits and maintains such equal rights, that we need fear no attack against it, and that I am persuaded it will rise victorious over both its open enemies and its hollow friends. How, then, is the anomaly of the Protestant Church in Ireland to be dealt with? I answer, that it may be greatly alleviated, and almost entirely removed, by a system of commutation of tithes, avoiding any appropriation of its revenue from its present purposes. For let it be observed, that the landed property of Ireland belongs to Protestants in even a much greater proportion than the population belongs to Roman Catholics. I have heard it confidently and, I believe, truly stated, that nineteen twentieths of the land are in the possession of Protestants. Now, then, if you throw the payment of tithes upon this land, and remove it from the occupying tenant, do you not go a very great way in removing the alleged anomaly? At least, I will assert, that this arrangement is infinitely more free from anomaly than any other which you could devise for religious establishment under this state of things.
I will refrain from entering, exhausted as the House must be on the subject, into the statistical calculations connected with this clause. I could do little more than repeat the statements contained in the clear and admirable speech of the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire (Lord Stanley) on the second reading,— a speech, combining, in so great a degree, the most accurate calculations with the most brilliant eloquence. On that speech I take my stand. I rely upon it for the proof of the fact, that there is no surplus; or, that if a surplus be wrung from the Protestant Church, it must be so, by oppression and injustice; and that the re venues of the Church are not more than sufficient for the decent maintenance of its ministers. There are to be only 1250 be nefices—this is what is proposed, and this, it is said, is an overgrown establishment, Yet, if we take no account at all of the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians, each
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incumbent would still, on an average, have the care of above 700 persons of the Established Church, and these, too, scattered over a most extensive tract of country; and how, under such circumstances, even from the extremity of party spirit, there can be a taunt of a sinecure Church, I own, I find it difficult to understand: however, I repeat it, I will avoid entering again into these details; but I wish to say one word with respect to a subject which is often thrown in our teeth, and which I think has not been sufficiently noticed on this side. I mean the religious system of Prussia. I believe that it was this foreign analogy which chiefly weighed with many worthy and respectable men,—more especially with one of my earliest and most valued friends, who I am sure, neither on this or any other subject gives his vote on any but most conscientious grounds, the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Pusey). Now, with respect to Prussia, there is a Report ably drawn up by Mr. Lewis, and presented to this House under, I must say, rather suspicious circumstances, and leading to the belief that some Members, at least, of his Majesty's Government do not think the Prussian system without application to the state of Ireland. Now the practical question is, how, in the Prussian system of co-equal establishment for both persuasions, religious peace and civil quiet can be in any degree obtained? Why, if hon. Gentlemen will look to the Report, they will find that they are obtained by the absence of freedom, and that the Prussian Government calls its political despotism in aid of its vaunted religious impartiality. In the 7th page of the Report, I find these words:—
" Proselytism, or inducing a person to change his religious faith by force or persuasion, is specially prohibited by law. Controversial sermons are forbidden by law, and are punish ed by a fixed term of imprisonment."
Now, then, here you have the article, but what say you to the price? Are you willing to subvert the Irish Church at the expense of subverting also the British Constitution? Would the Prussian regulations be considered acceptable in this country? What would you say, here, where the press is as free as air, and the fullest licence given to every controversy, if you saw a Protestant clergyman dragged to prison for preaching against what he believes the errors of Popery? Or, take the opposite case, which I am just as ready to put. Do you wish to see imprisonment

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put in force against the Catholic priests for denouncing (as they have a perfect right to do) what they would call the dangers of heresy? Such a system of ecclesiastical government is totally incompatible with the free Constitution of this country.
Sir, in conclusion, I must earnestly appeal—not to his Majesty's Government, nor to the followers of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. O'Connell), but—to the independent Members of this House. Several of them have not hesitated to own in conversation their alarm at the aspect of the times, and their apprehension that his Majesty's Ministers would not be found sufficiently firm in the day of trial. Let me, then, ask them whether they will risk the dangers that will most certainly follow, merely for the sake of trying an experiment with an abstract principle? Will they, for the sake of a surplus which must be either imaginary or extortionate, take the first step against the property of the Irish Church? If they do, let them be assured that the first step will be followed by another against ecclesiastical property at home, and that, in fact, the battle of the Church of England will be fought on Irish ground. Let them depend upon it that they cannot say to the multitude any more than King Canute could say to the waves, "Thus far shalt thou come and no further." I trust, then, that the honest and independent Members of this House will vote in support of the motion which I have now submitted; and, in so doing, afford us what I shall consider, not a party triumph, but a great national advantage.
Mr. Poulter: Sir, I cannot admit that this Bill does alienate permanently any portion of the property of the Church. I see in it provisions for the appropriation of that which it seeks now to deal with to the moral and religious instruction of the whole people of Ireland, only so long as there can be discovered no substantial Protestant duties unprovided for. And I see in it provisions for supplying such deficiencies wherever they shall truly arise. The noble Lord who has just sat down says, that though he will not agree to the principle of appropriation, he would propose a complete reform of the Protestant Church in Ireland. I ask the noble Lord why it was that such a proposition never proceeded from the other side of the House until appropriation was demanded? When was it that Gentlemen on that side ever thought of looking into the abuses of the Irish Church, until his Majesty's Government thought it
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their duty to set apart the surplus of its revenues to the moral and religious education of the Irish people. They never adopted reform till they were driven to it by dread of something else. They act upon the question of Irish Church Reform, exactly as they did upon Irish Corporation Reform. When they wanted to stave off reform in the Irish Corporations, they told us they were ready to give up all the abuses of the old Protestant Corporations. But they never discovered those abuses until his Majesty's Government brought forward a mea sure that would give new reformed Corporations to Ireland. And now the noble Lord, in opposition to those who on this side of the House advocate most conscientiously a religious principle—brings for ward his pretended proposition for re form, which was never dreamt of by Gentle men opposite except as a means of averting something still more obnoxious to them. Had Government never acted as they have done, they would have continued the abuses of the Irish Church and the Irish Corporations; and they now only wish to prevent the greater measure of reform by conceding the smaller. The noble Lord talked about the English Church, and said present Bill was only the precursor of an the attack upon that Church; but that is not a fair argument; does not every body know that in the most fair and equal distribution which can take place, and I am happy to learn that a more fair distribution is about to be proposed to Parliament. Does not every body know, that in the present population of England, it will be impossible to bring home to every part of that population the benefits of the Protestant Establishment. So far therefore from agreeing that there is any fear of the principle of this Bill being applied to the English Church, the noble Lord knows well that such a proposition would be rejected by a vast majority of this House; nay, that without any assistance from the other side, the great majority, if not all, of those who sit on this side would instantly negative a proposal to deduct one farthing from the Protestant Establishment of this country. The noble Lord spoke of private property; but what analogy is there between the case of property conferred upon a certain body of men. upon condition of their maintaining a high public character, and conducting themselves honourably and with propriety, and the case of private property, which is held by individuals, who cannot be deprived of it upon any such grounds? Private property is

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held upon no condition whatever. And what similarity is there between it and property which is held by a Church, in the nature of a public establishment, having public duties to perform, in default of which it is subjected to forfeiture as having violated the conditions which the legislature of the country thinks fit to impose. To me it has always been a great recommendation of this Bill, that it does not touch vested interests; that it does not take from any man that, the possession of which he has long enjoyed, and the continuance of which he has always contemplated, and looked to for the maintenance of his family. But the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire was Secretary for Ireland when a Bill passed this House which did touch vested interest, I believe it was the Church Temporalities Act, and for Gentlemen opposite who voted for that measure to object to this, is indeed, after swallowing the camel, to strain at the gnat. This Bill is founded upon just principles,—whoever accepts any living under this Bill will do so voluntarily,—will do so, fully acquainted with the nature of the deductions it proposes to effect. Whereas the Church Temporalities Act, tore away in many instances from the clergyman, that which he had looked forward to as the only means of subsistence to his family. [Lord Stanley intimated his dissent from this] I remember well hearing from the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, a most affecting appeal on behalf of a clergy man who had been reduced to the deepest distress in consequence of the taxes imposed by that Bill.
Sir James Graham: No, no; it was because he could not collect his tithe.
Mr. Poulter: And the right hon. Gentleman stated also, that the distress of the clergyman arose from the reductions effected in his income by that Act. [No!no!] At all events I return to my original proposition, that this Bill does not touch vested rights, it will establish a new state Of things, under which any clergyman who accepts a living will do so voluntarily, and fully cognizant of the reductions which it will effect in his income. There has been a great change even in the language of the noble Lord opposite, the Member for North Lancashire. I remember the time when he would not consent to go into any calculations of the revenues of the Protestant Church, nor of the numbers of the Protestant population in Ireland. His argument was this,—" I don't care what your
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account of the revenues is, what your calculations of numbers are; whether the revenues of the Church of Ireland be great or small in reference to the population of that country." But this year the noble Lord has condescended to give us some calculations of the amount of those revenues, he has even given us some calculations as to the numbers of the Protestant population. Next year, perhaps, he will consent to go into calculations as to the Catholic population of Ireland; and in the course of time I have no doubt he will come up to the full measure of reform proposed by Government. Now, with regard to the population, I have heard it stated on the authority of a person on whose veracity I can depend, that in days of old, in the good old times, before men discovered that language was given men to conceal their real sentiments, a Protestant rector was heard to say, "I have but one parishioner, and I hope he'll soon be converted." At first sight this seems a very improper speech, but when we come to examine it, we shall see that it was very natural that the Protestant rector should feel ashamed of having a single parishioner; it is a grievance, that a man should be placed in such a situation. It is the fashion, Sir, to call all measures of Church Reform in Ireland "concessions," concessions which will end only in total destruction. Sir, I am an enemy to concession; I object not only to the principle, but I believe the word itself to be radically an improper word; it ought to be expunged from the political dictionary. If it means anything it means this, the departing front the line of just principle, and to that, I for one, will never concede; and I never wish you to make "concessions" on this subject any more than on any other; I ask you to do that which is due to a nation, and I will never consent to apply the term concession to that which common honesty and justice demand. It reminds me of a speech I once heard uttered by a Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in reply to a defend ant, who having gained the cause thanked his Lordship for his kindness and "concession" to him. "Sir," (said the indignant Judge,) "the Court of King's Bench never does a kindness, it never makes a concession, it administers justice impartially to all. A great deal, Sir, has been said respecting the relation of the two Houses of Parliament, and it has been confidently predicted that this Bill will never pass the Upper House. I do not think the situation of the two branches of the Legislature is at all diffi-

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cult to be understood. If the two Houses always agreed upon the same specific measures, there would be no use in having two Houses. The constitutional agreement which it is necessary for the good government of those kingdoms should subsist between them, is an agreement not upon the same precise points of opinion on any subject, but an agreement upon great and leading principles. Difference of opinion may fairly, nay, advantageously exist as to the means of carrying out those principles, the errors of one House being thus corrected by the deliberations of another. But in the pre sent situation of public affairs the difference comes to the whole spirit and principle of the government of this country; such a difference must show itself upon some occasions, and therefore, in the present instance, which is not to be regarded by itself, per se, but as only part of a system of hostility on the part of the Upper House to great and fundamental principles of government manifested in this particular measure. This is the state of things to which we are now reduced; I look upon the body to which I have alluded as the first body of nobility upon the face of the earth, and this only increases the regret which I feel, that such a body should for a single moment have endangered their privileges and existence, by resisting to the last every measure of reform—by obstructing all attempts on the part of a liberal government to carry on the business of the country, and especially, by resisting the settlement of the Irish Church question, as well when it was submitted to them without, as when it was coupled with, the obnoxious appropriation clause. Sir, I should rejoice to see the day in which confidence could be placed in the liberal policy of the House of Lords. I am against any organic change in that House; I am convinced that nothing but the in juries and insults which the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny and his countrymen have sustained, would have induced him to advocate such an extreme proposition. I forgive him, but, for myself, I look to the remedy of existing evils, to the continued, forcible, but temperate expression of public feeling in the country, and in the future proceedings of this House.
Mr. Plumptre: Sir, I object to this Bill, because I believe it has a tendency to weaken the Protestant Established Church in Ireland. I am decidedly attached to that Establishment, because I consider it the main bulwark of the Protestant religion. I am attached to Protestant ism, because I believe it to be the main
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bulwark of the national welfare. And I am sorry to observe, that in the consideration of this question neither the Government nor the country appear duly to have appreciated the Protestant religion. It pains me to see a measure introduced. which will, I believe, tend to weaken that religion. It seems to me a most short sighted policy to grasp at a delusive shadow of at best a temporary tranquillity, and neglect the interests of that religion which I repeat is the only true source of the real, the permanent prosperity of a land. I object, Sir, to this Bill, because it embraces a principle to which I can never assent— the principle of appropriating property dedicated to one purpose to another and a totally different object. I object also to this Bill, because the funds which it pro poses to appropriate would be diverted, or appropriated to the maintenance of a system of education in Ireland, which (how ever I may differ in so saying from Gentlemen even on this side of the House,) I conceive to be vicious in itself, and which, as far as I can learn, is working now in that country to the benefit of one party exclusively. I object to this measure, and especially to the appropriation clause, as unnecessary and delusive. It is quite in the power of Parliament to legislate for the Established Church in Ireland, or for a national system of Education in Ireland, without mixing the two together, and without framing a Bill which will, I believe, plunge many of the pious and un fortunate Irish clergymen into distress and poverty, but who will, I am well convinced, be not induced by any sufferings,' however painful, any distress, however poignant, to neglect the duty which they owe to their flocks, and to that God by whom they have been set over them.
Mr. Emerson Tennent: Although he believed it was understood by the House that the consideration of this clause would afford an opportunity for the discussion of the general principle of the Bill, he would not avail himself of that permission, as well because he regarded it as a waste of time to protract the debate on a measure which all parties admitted could never pass into a law so long as this appropriation clause was retained, as because on its other main provisions but little difference of opinion existed in the House. He, of course, excepted those extraordinary provisions for wiping away the tithe arrears which were at present accruing due, and for exempting the landlords of

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tenants at will from those liabilities which were now imposed on them by Lord Stanley's Act, and under which the greater majority of them had already charged themselves with the tithes of their estates. He believed that it was a precedent unexampled in legislation to wipe away by one arbitrary clause the legal debts of a whole nation—to defraud by one sweeping pro vision some hundreds of creditors of their just and equitable claims. It was unnecessary to point out the injustice of such a proceeding towards those tithe-payers who had struggled to discharge their debts, and those tithe-owners who had abstained from any harsh proceedings for their recovery. [Lord Morpeth: Those clauses are struck out.] He would therefore confine his observations exclusively to the clause under discussion, and which avowedly formed the great and distinguishing feature of this Bill, and he, (Mr. E. Tennent) could state, from personal know ledge, that it was less popular at the pre sent moment, after two years' consideration, than it was at its first introduction in the last session of Parliament. It was then eagerly embraced by that party in the country who would with equal readiness have grasped at any other expedient, however ultimately ruinous, provided it suited their immediate purpose of effecting a change in the Administration. But that very party were now of all others the most anxious to abandon it, from a conviction too strong to be resisted, that although its adoption for the moment sufficed for the overthrow of other opponents, its permanent retention must lead to renovating themselves. For a long series of years the peace of Ireland and the repose of this country had been disturbed and destroyed by a demand for an adjustment of the question of the Irish Church; that adjustment was on the verge of being effected by the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) on terms which he (Mr. E. Tennent) firmly believed would have been satisfactory to all parties, when the forcible introduction of this appropriation principle flung back the question into its original position, and interposed an insuperable barrier to its settlement: thus with a Ministry on the one hand pledged to resist every settlement of this question which did not involve the principle of appropriation, and on the other hand the remaining branches of the Legislature and the majority of the people of England equally determined to resist any arrangement in which it is included, is it
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not a literal and undeniable fact, that the tenure on which the present Administration avowedly retain their power, is a solemn and positive engagement against any adjustment of Irish tithes and any possible settlement of the Irish Church? Was it probable, he would ask, or was it possible, that a Ministry could continue to hold office on such terms, in the face of an unavoidable confession of their inability to effect a settlement of some of the most important questions which could occupy the attention of the Legislature? Is it ''justice to Ireland" to keep open this fertile cause of discontent, festering and irritating from year to year, for no other assignable object than the retention in place of one set of men, who cannot effect a satisfactory adjustment, to the exclusion of others who can? Above all, is it justice to the poor Irish tithe-payers, who have had it in their power for some time past to obtain an abatement of from 20 to 30 per cent., which the tithe-owners were willing to pay to them in consideration of the in creased facilities of collecting their income, which an equitable commutation would afford them?—is it fair or just, he would say to them, to declare that they must forego this advantage, because the abstract resolution of 1835 prohibits them from enjoying it? He (Mr. E. Tennent) knew that these were considerations which now occupied the minds of men out of doors who last session were eager for the adoption of this appropriation clause, and he felt satisfied that in that House there was no party more anxious for the abandonment of that clause than the partisans of the right hon. Gentlemen who occupied the opposite bench, provided any decent expedient could be devised for "shaking off their engagements." But there was another class, much more numerous and influential, with whom during the last year this appropriation clause has ceased to be popular; he alluded to those mode rate and well-meaning men who, without being partisans on either side, were deluded by declamation and misrepresentations of the wealth of the Established Church, and allured by specious professions about the promotion of education, and the moral instruction of the people, with which the communication of this proposal was accompanied, and who, without investigating the principle of the alienation, saw nothing in the result but the application to one legitimate purpose of a sum which they conceived was not required for

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another, and believed that they were insuring peace to Ireland and contentment to the Roman Catholics, without injury to the interests of the Protestant Church. In every one of these particulars the parties have been successively undeceived; the vaunted riches of the Establishment have exhibited on a scrutiny a deficiency rather than a surplus, and the tone of exultation with which the proposal of their confiscation has been hailed by the Roman Catholics of Ireland has satisfied them that the passing of this clause, so far from being the end of agitation, is in reality but the beginning of change. The noble Lord who introduced this Bill (Lord Morpeth) professed to regard it as a measure of reform, and not as a project of destruction, and he (Mr. E. Tennent) had no reason to question the sincerity of his profession; but was there any man in his senses who knew the real condition of Ireland who would say that such were the feelings with which it was regarded by the Roman Catholics of Ireland? The noble Lord was a stranger in Ireland, and placed in a position with regard to it above all others obnoxious to misrepresentation and deception, and he might possibly be persuaded of the reality of a spirit of moderation which did not exist; but those who were in habits of association with the people, and who heard the undisguised expression of their feelings and objects, knew too well the extent to which they were disposed to carry every measure of (so called) Church reform. However these sentiments may have been concealed during previous Administrations, they have been avowed since the present Ministry came into office, and above all, since the passing of the appropriation resolution, with a boldness which amply evinces a belief, whether well or ill-founded, in a corresponding sympathy on the part of the Government. A Roman Catholic news paper, lately published at Belfast, contained in one of its strictures on this measure a candid avowal of the feelings of its party from which he would beg leave of the House to read a very few sentences: "We cannot too warmly applaud the appropriation clauses of the Bill; they are admirable in providing at once a fund of large amount for the public benefit from sources which have hitherto been productive only of public injury and wrong; but they are admirable chiefly in the recognition of a doctrine which strikes at the foundation of the Irish Establishment,
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and furnishes a wedge which, if we hare spirit and energy to drive it home will rendass under and lay prostrate that towering system of iniquity. It is the be ginning of Irish Church reform, it is no thing more; but that the beginning should have been made, is a subject for proud and exulting satisfaction. The Government, by adopting this measure of appropriation, has made a breach in the muniments of the English Church of Ireland which never can be repaired; which every day must widen until the whole fabric shall be dissolved, and the parties which have been striving in mad hostility about it for troublous centuries shall join in amity at last over its ruins." If such are the sentiments entertained by the cool and cautious Roman Catholics of the north of Ire land as to the effects of this "final mea sure" of Church reform, what may we imagine are the feelings of the more sanguine and inflammable inhabitants of the south? and with such evidence of the inclination, is it wise or is it prudent in his Majesty's Ministers to furnish the means to those who are so undisguisedly anxious for the destruction of the Protestant Church in Ireland? At the present moment it is chiefly as a question of principle, and not as a question of amount, that the present proposition is especially formidable. As a matter of finance the 50,000 l. which it proposes to alienate is too contemptible in itself to afford grounds for contention on the part of the Roman Catholics, what they covet is the precedent of confiscation, and not the mere acquisition of a sum which
" Not enriches them, but makes us poor indeed.''
But that precedent being once conceded, the sacredness of property being once invaded, and the first process of the sacrilegious appropriation achieved, can we for a moment imagine that they will be content to let it remain as a question of principle, and they will not speedily convert it into a matter of gain to themselves, and of ruin to the Establishment? The anxiety which the noble Lord (Morpeth) has evinced to manufacture a surplus, on which to make the first essay of this important precedent, amply attests that the party are not disposed to allow the Resolution of 1835 to remain a dead letter. It being once re solved that Parliament might deal with a surplus, it became instantly indispensable, by some means or other, fair or foul, to discover a surplus for their operations—

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" Rem facias, si possis recte—si non, quoeunque modo rem."
Even 50,000 l. was not considered too trifling a sum for the first experiment, and, paltry as it is, see with how much toil even this miserable amount has been achieved. By the Bill of last year it was to be procured by hewing off 850 parishes; by the present measure it is to be collected by paring down the entire number. Having failed with the hatchet, the noble Lord betakes himself to the plane, and the shavings of this Session are to equal in amount the loppings of the last. And even supposing the first statement effected, is it in the nature of things to suppose that it can possibly afford satisfaction or ensure contentment, or that further demands will not be made with equal appetite and insisted on with equal energy? If the Government are not pre pared to accede to this—if they are re solved to concede only the first demand, and to resist every subsequent attack upon the Church—the result of their present proposition, even if successfully carried into effect, will be ruin to the one party, the exasperation of the other, and a perpetuation of that discontent and agitation which they profess it to be their first object to allay. As a political measure, this clause, therefore, is pregnant with mischief and danger, and having served its purpose as a political engine, it has not only ceased to be an assistant, but has actually become an incumbrance to its promoters. Like the horse in the fable, they sought the aid of an ally, but have effectually saddled themselves with a rider. There was but one other point connected with the question on which he (Mr. E. Tennent) was desirous of offering an observation, and that was, the power of Parliament to interfere in the manner which was here contemplated with the property of the Church. He did not mean the absolute and irresponsible power which Parliament possessed to effect this or any other object, but the right and equity of such a proceeding as was threatened. He did not mean to enter upon the general question of such a power, but simply to allude to one of the most prominent arguments which had been used in favour of it by the supporters of this Bill, and which he conceived, though constantly adduced, by no means afforded a case in point,—he referred to the argument drawn from the confiscation of ecclesiastical property at the period of the Reformation, and its
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appropriation to the uses of the Protestant Church. Parliament, we are reminded, gave its sanction in the reign of Henry 8 th to the transfer of Church property from the monasteries and clergy of the Roman Catholics to Protestant establishments, and consequently, they argue, it possesses an equal power to reconvey it from the Protestants to the Roman Catholics, or to any other parties, at the present day. The assertion was made in a total forgetfulness of the relative positions of the Parliament and the Church at the period of the Re formation and at the present time. The Roman Catholic Church then claimed to hold its property altogether as an independent and irresponsible Corporation, confessing its allegiance to Rome alone, and acknowledging no authority or right of interference in the Crown or the Parliament. Even the power of their own taxation was then, and till a period long subsequent, solely in the hands of the Convocation of the clergy. One great constitutional effect of the Reformation was the destruction of this imperium inimperio, and the transfer of its property to the Protestant Church and other lay subjects of the realm, who acknowledged the Crown as their head, and received their endowments under the guardianship and protection of the Legislature. Parliament, in fact, neither claimed nor exercised over church property any species of authority till it had been transferred from the monasteries to those who acknowledged themselves subjects of the Crown; and the effects of the change were amply attested in the reign of Queen Mary, who, having restored the Roman Catholic religion, applied for the sanction of Parliament to restore to it its property likewise; which Parliament, although chiefly com posed of Roman Catholics, themselves resolutely refused, on the ground that having, by its confiscation from the Church of Rome, become vested in their trust for the subjects of the Crown, they could not, without a violation of all faith, permit it to be alienated. The conduct of the Parliament in the reign of Queen Mary, therefore, rather than in that of Henry 8th, affords the precedent by which this House ought to be guided; its transfer to the Church of England by the latter was an act of power without involving a breach of trust; but its reconveyance now would be a violation of the faith of the Legislature and the honour of the Crown. He (Mr.

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E. Tennent) knew how futile it was to rely upon any reasoning of this, kind as arguments to alter the foregone conclusions of the majority of that House; he knew how vain it was, to hope that any thing but popular influence would affect the decision on which they were about to come on this question. Among the many evils which agitation had inflicted upon this country, it was not the least or the most alarming, that it had gone far to destroy the deliberative functions of that assembly, and that questions which formerly exercised the judgment of the Legislature were now settled at the chapels and the hustings, whence representatives were delegated to record their decisions in Parliament. He (Mr. E. Tennent) had little expectation that any observations of his could have weight with Gentlemen who were about to vote under such influences, but he still cherished a hope that his Majesty's Ministers, who of all others must most sensibly feel the inconveniences arising from this appropriation principle, might still be induced to withdraw it from the Bill, and thus remove the only obstruction to the satisfactory, and he trusted the final, adjustment of this important question.
Mr. Morgan John O'Connellsaid, it was his intention only to notice some few of the remarks that had fallen from the hon. Member who had just addressed the House. That hon. Member had told them of what were the opinions entertained upon the Church question by the sober and reflecting people of the north of Ire land. He did not know precisely what the feelings of the people in that part of Ireland were at this moment; but he re collected this—that opinions equally bold, equally strong, equally violent, were, if not entertained, at least expressed, some few years ago amongst the people of the north of Ireland, with respect to the House of Lords. At that time, when the Lords were spoken of as hereditary legislators, they were also sneered at as
" The tenth transmitters of a foolish face."
He begged to state to the House, that such, at least, was the language used to wards them by the hon. Member opposite. Now with respect to the question before the House, the hon. Gentleman, as he understood him, complained upon this, as he did upon the former Bill, that it tended to reduce the ministers of the Established Church, Before he discussed that point,
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he could not but remark on the singular felicity of choice that hon. Members opposite made when they were resolved upon opposing measures beneficial to Ireland. When Ireland was to be refused Corporations, an ex-secretary for Ireland was the organ of the Opposition; now, when a. settlement of the Church question was to be refused, an ex-secretary for Foreign Affairs was the selected representative of the Opposition; those who were the advocates of the Miguelites in Portugal, and the Carlists in Spain, now came forward to oppose Popery in Ireland. Now, with respect to the point urged by the noble Lord, and echoed by the hon. Gentleman, he did certainly expect, when such a point was referred, more accuracy of detail from hon. Members opposite. There were to be 1,250 benefices under this Act. Now they were not to infer from this, that there would be only 1,250 clergymen. On the contrary, it was to be supposed that there would be not only rectors but curates. It was to be recollected, too, the numbers of those belonging to different sects, who were not Catholic Dissenters, Wesleyan Methodists, and others, never reckoned themselves as Members of the Established Church. But then it was complained, that what was provided under this Act was not sufficient for the maintenance of an adequate number of clergymen in pro portion to the members of the Established Church, while the fact was overlooked of the numbers belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, and for whom the spiritual duties were performed by those priests who were supported solely by voluntary contributions. There were 6,400,000 Roman Catholics in Ireland. Did the noble Lord know how many clergymen attended to their spiritual wants? In the report of the Commissioners of education there was a return for each county of the number of the Catholic clergy. There were 995 parish priests and 1,175 curates, the total being 2,170 working clergymen. These 2,170 discharged the religious duties for that vast population, being a proportion of 3,000 persons to each clergyman. Now if it were said that the Protestants were scattered, recollect that the Roman Catholic were more scattered. The Protestants were to be found generally near towns, and living in the neighbourhood of the gentry, or residing close to a church. The Roman Catholics lived in the bogs and mountain glens in Ireland. Wherever

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they were, there Roman Catholic clergy were to be found in the exercise of their laborious duties, and attending the spiritual wants of their flocks. He knew of a single parish himself, in which there were 330,000 Roman Catholics, and but a single clergyman to attend to them. Nominally eight parishes were combined together—a single clergyman had to attend this scattered flock—he had to attend two chapels every Sunday, and where the assistance of a curate would be of the greatest use, where it was most desirable, one could not be procured, for the parish was so poor, that it had not the means of supporting one. He did not wish, however, to rest upon isolated cases. This he trusted he might be permitted to say, that the Roman Catholic clergymen, however onerous, however arduous, were the duties imposed upon them, were indefatigable in discharging them. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might deem them erroneous in their opinions, might call them papists, idolaters, or designate them by any other terms, that in the exuberance of their charity they chose to bestow upon them, but they could not deny that the Catholic clergy, in the laborious duties they had to per form, were constant, untiring and persevering. Individuals discharged those duties which it was said would be a hard ship upon the Members of the established Church to perform. They saw the Catholic clergy, supported alone by voluntary contributions, undergo those hardships and labours. They saw some of them travel seven or eight miles, exposed to the most inclement season, upon bad roads to visit a miserable people in their wretched hovels. They saw the Catholic clergy, wherever their aid was required, always ready to yield it, whatever was the danger or the peril to be encountered. Now, however hon. Gentlemen opposite might object to the influence of the Catholic clergy over the minds and hearts of their flocks—however they might condemn the exercise of that influence, yet hon. Gentlemen could not deny, that it was an influence to which they were fairly and justly entitled. They saw another Church, at present existing in Ireland, with a number of Ministers very nearly equal to the Ministers of the Roman Catholic Church. There was not a difference of 200, between the Ministers of the 800,000 and the 6,000,000. The people, then, cried out against the appropriation of a fund from
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which they received no benefit, and yet to which they were obliged to contribute. What was the answer made to them? That they should contribute, and that not the least portion should be applied to their wants in any way. Could they wonder that heart burnings and outrages were the consequence? The noble Lord alluded to the property in that country. He told them that there was no injustice done by acting upon his principles, for while four sixths of the people were Catholics, nineteen-twentieths of the property belonged to the Protestants. He could not tell what was the noble Lord's authority for stating, that nineteen-twentieths of the property of Ireland belonged to the Members of the established Church. He did not know that any returns were made upon this subject, except by the late Conservative society, and he must say that he did not consider them a very impartial source of information. Tithes were not charged upon the fee of the land. He would ask the noble Lord in how many instances it occurred, that the fee, or nominal rent, belonged to absentees, while the actual rent was the property of Roman Catholics. The attempt on this subject to prove that landed property in Ireland belonged to Protestants, reminded him forcibly of an expression which he had seen in the news papers, and applied with singular felicity to this point, that it "was not the cure of souls that was alluded to, but the cure of acres." Hence it was said, no matter how small the number of the population belonging to the established Church, that it was with reference to the quantity of acres in the hands of Protestants, that they were to look to the maintenance of the Protestant establishment. They had at length undertaken to remedy to a small extent the existing state of things. This Bill did not, as it was said, do any thing towards the destruction of the established Church. Members on his side of the House, had been accused of wishing for that destruction; but be that as it might, and what ever opinions individuals might entertain, yet they were bound to look at the Bill before them, with reference to itself alone. The Bill did not propose the destruction of the established Church, nor the substitution of that of the Roman Catholics—no such consequence was to be drawn from it. The Bill only proposed the reduction of a surplus, which was a disgrace to the Church. He had. heard, the imputation

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cast upon Roman Catholics, that they were anxious for the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion. For his own part, he spoke only his own opinion—he, as a Roman Catholic said this—God forbid that he should ever see the day, in that country, or in this, in which his religion should be connected with the state. He thought that its clergy would continue more respected, and its doctrines remain purer, while disconnected from the state, than united with it. He did not know that such a connection could serve religion—he believed it injured the state. The proposition then before the House was to reduce something from the superfluities of the Church. The extent of the reduction was objected to by the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire, when opposing the second reading. The noble Lord upon that occasion argued, as he always did, ably, he could not add justly. A few nights since, the hon. Member for Tipperary had complimented the noble Lord upon his consistency, but assured him that he ought never to have advocated reform. He wished to make another exception— in his opinion the noble Lord ought never to have been a supporter of the Church Temporalities Act. When the noble Lord supported that Act, he had not the honour of having a seat in that House, but he heard the noble Lord on that occasion speak with more than his usual success. The noble Lord then argued for the reduction of the number of the bishops, on the ground of the paucity of the clergy to be attended to. Now he did not see why there was not a greater relation between pastors and their flocks, than between bishops and their clergymen. Perhaps the noble Lord did not see the relation; but he considered it affected the principle. If they reduced the number of bishops because they had not clergy to attend to, why must not they also reduce the number of clergy if they had not flocks to attend to? He hoped the House would again sanction the principle as it had done before. Those, he thought, who were sincere friends to the church, would act as its best friends by reducing those excrescences which were an injury to it. If there came a cry for the church, it would be found in a far better condition by removing those excrescences, than by maintaining it with all its enormities—they could, in such circumstances say, that the Church
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being reduced to a reasonable and rational scale upon that we take our stand.
Sir Frederick Trenchhad listened with great attention to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He had listened to his observations indeed, with the more attention, because they were free from those menaces and that very objectionable tone of language which had be come so common in debates in that House. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, had made his statements very candidly and fairly; but at the same time it brought conviction to his mind, that that hon. Gentleman looked forward to the property of the Protestant Church reverting to that of the Roman Catholic, though he did not wish it to be applied to the purposes of the State. He thought that the hon. Gentleman conceived that the property of the Protestant Establishment should be converted to the interests of the majority; and he looked with dread to the practical application of any such principle. The hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, indeed, had taught the people of Ireland to keep within the line of the law; —but when the Government officers came forward they set the law at defiance. The language of the Attorney-General tended to nothing but the destruction of the Protestant Church—though education was the pretence which was set up for the adoption of this measure. Now, no man was more anxious than he was to see education spread over Ireland, because he looked to obtain, by its agency, the extinction of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. [" Oh!"] Yes; he believed that education would open the eyes of the people of Ireland to intelligence. Then would the unbounded power of the priests over their minds cease; and under this conviction he was a friend to the diffusion of education. But under no pretence, and by no propositions which might be made, would he, for one, ever consent to allow one farthing to be taken from the Established Church. He had seen, indeed, the noble Lord, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, gradually relaxing to the influence, not from without, but from within. In his (Sir Frederick Trench's) conscience he believed, that the love of power and place had led him and his Colleagues to listen to suggestions made to them of which they in their hearts disapproved. He believed them to be mere creatures in the hands of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny — that powerful and mighty giant. They had

1203
heard of the giant Briareus with his hundred hands, and if he could not follow up the simile, still if he gave a pair of hands to each Member immediately under his control, the amount of hands of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny would be nearly the same as those of Briareus, and that with these powerful hands, he might strangle and extinguish his Majesty's present Government. What had been the language of the Attorney-General at the end of a seven days' debate— was it not almost telling the Irish people that they might assassinate those who op posed them?
Doctor Baldwin: Oh! oh!
Sir F. Trenchbegged to tell the hon. Gentleman that he had referred to the Reports to which the House were in the habit of appealing, and from those Reports he would read. The hon. and learned Attorney-General began his speech by asking —" what benefit would be conferred on the Christian community by erecting churches which were a grievance to one set of believers, and an insult to another?" This was the preface to the speech to which he referred. "He had visited that beautiful and hospitable country a year and a half ago; and, knowing the in flammable temperament of the Irish people, he had observed that the celebrated Marquis of Argyle had hated all Popery and superstition, and that such was the feeling in Scotland at the assassination of Archbishop Sharpe, that that assassination was, he believed, approved of by the majority of the people." This surely, was a broad hint to a people who were known to be of an inflammable nature, and upon whose minds had been strongly inculcated by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, the words:—
"— Hereditary bondsmen know, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
Then, after having said that the murder of Archbishop Sharpe was approved of by the majority of the people, the learned Attorney-General had said, "There was nothing to compare, in Ireland, to this assassination; yet it was a common observation in Scotland that the killing of Archbishop Sharpe was no murder." The hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, he supposed, expressed his approbation of these remarks, but he (Sir F. Trench) confessed he did not; nor did he think that any man, know in the nature of the Irish people, would admire the proceeding
1204
on the part of the Attorney-General. He thought that if the people of England did not express a very strong feeling, the Irish Church would be speedily extinguished, and that, almost as speedily, the destruction of the English Church must follow; and he thought that those who supported this spoliation and appropriation of the funds would not have done so if they were not constrained. He had heard it said that no bargain had yet been made. Lord Melbourne had said elsewhere that he had never made any bargain, and he believed that a more honourable man than Lord Melbourne did not breathe; but he would ask any hon. Gentleman whether he could entertain any other opinion than that, whether Lord Melbourne was cognizant of such a bargain or not—whether such bargain was or was not made, still the destruction of the Church in Ireland was intended? He had known Lord Melbourne all his life, and had an affectionate regard for him. It grieved him to see him play the part of a special pleader, or a casuist; he did not believe him to be either; but there could be no doubt what was the power which kept his Majesty's Government in place.
Doctor Baldwinsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down had not edified the House with the sound ness of his argument, or the comprehensiveness of his views. He begged to say that he disdained the charge which the hon. and gallant Member had imputed to those who sat on that side of the House; he denied the imputation intended to be conveyed. He sat in this House as an independent Member, and as a friend and supporter of his Majesty's Ministers—not because he was led by the hon. and learn ed Member for Kilkenny—not because he was bound to follow his doctrines, but because he, with others, had selected that hon. and learned Gentleman most freely as being the most capable to lead them. He sat in that House, not because he paid submission or obedience to the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny's dictation, not because that hon. Member had an influence over the people of Ireland, which, indeed, he certainly had, and deserved to have. He could not agree that his Church should be connected with the State; at the same time he respected those who were members of the Established Church; many of the clergy of that Church he was acquainted with, and knew them to be most

1205
respectable men; but he could not see why those who dissented from that Church should pay to their support. The best mode of building up and fortifying the Church of Ireland was to correct its abuses. The number, indeed, of Protestants in Ireland were becoming, he believed, every day less. Tithes were taxed in England for the benefit of the poor, and a similar principle ought to pervade Ireland. The people of Ireland had no objection to the existence of the Church in that country— they had no objection to the Protestants, as Protestants—but they had objection to be burdened with an onerous and cruel establishment, for the support of a Church which they had not sought to have, but which had been imposed on them by Act of Parliament. If they did not render justice to Ireland by an Act of the Legislature, the people of that country were determined to right themselves by force. If the House adopted the measures of his Majesty's Ministers, they would amalgamate the people of Ireland with the people of England, and make the two countries one; but if they kept up the present system of division and exclusive interest, they never would bring the people of Ire land to believe that their country was a part of the British Empire. He implored them to recollect that dangers might in future assail them, though they were now at peace, and how desirable it was to secure the great force which Ireland might bring in the field to the assistance of the Empire. He trusted, therefore, that if they valued the peace and tranquillity of the country they would assent to the mea sure before them.
Mr. Hardythought that, after the speech of the hon. Member, little dependence could be placed on the professions of the Catholics. At one time they heard that, if concession were made, no more would be heard of any attempt to subvert the Protestant Church. Well, then, con cession having been made, and amply made, they next heard that if further con cession, such as would suit the insatiable appetite of innovators, were not made they would extort their claims by force. The hon. Member opposite said he would not rob any individual of the Church, but yet he was doing so in the lump, for he was robbing the whole Church. His condescension was as much to be admired as the frank declaration of the hon. Member for Cork, that the Church, and of course
1206
its members, was alien to the feelings and habits of the Catholics, whom he pronounced exclusively the people, and should be swept away. The hon. Member was certainly a most useful, if not convenient, advocate to the Irish Catholics, whose boasted aim, as expressed through their organs, was the extirpation of Protestantism in that country. He would maintain that tithes were property that exclusively be longed to the Church and could not be alienated without an infringement of the fundamental principles of our Constitution as now established. This he would maintain, though he heard speeches in that House, and had read letters written out of it, maintaining that the grievance of tithes was the more, inasmuch as tithes once belonged to Catholics, and ought to be long to them again. He denied that the tithes belonged to the sect now called Catholic, for all the errors of the Catholic Church crept into it since the institution of tithes. It was since the time of Gregory, who first sent Augustine into England, when tithes were first introduced, that the abominations and superstitions of Popery, such as worship of images, transubstantiation, confession, which they, the rational Christians, protested against, were introduced. Look to the progress of the pre sent question, and judge of the degree of confidence that ought to be reposed in the veracity, the principle, and consistency of these men. In the year 1834, when the proposition for commutation of tithes was introduced to the House, the pre sent Ministers opposed the appropriation clause, as utterly unconnected with the real question; but now it appeared that appropriation was essential to an adjustment of tithes. He could not presume to judge of the means by which such a change was worked in the sentiments of the Ministry, whether it rose from the persuasion or intimidation of the Member for Kilkenny. At all events Ministers were induced or compelled shamefully to desert their former principles. He was released from defending by any arguments the wisdom and expediency of maintaining an Established Church by the declaration of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Morpeth) a few nights ago, when he said that an Established Church was useful, and he would support one. He was glad of that declaration. But it was in no way to sup port an Establishment to give subsistence to parsons who had only a certain number

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of parishioners. The object and utility of an Establishment was to provide moral and religious instruction for the people; Could this be done if the sphere of a Clergyman's usefulness were to be circumscribed within the precincts of a single parish, and his duties dependant on the chance of having a certain number of parishioners? It was the duty of the clergy to see that no other but the best doctrines should be taught to the people, and it was also the duty of the State, when endowing a body of clergy, to see that no other but the best religious system be sanctioned—justice to Ireland, the clap-trap used by the opposite side to delude the people, meant strictly—and to this sort of justice he would fully subscribe, to inculcate in that country those sound and moral lessons which would not only serve their temporal but their future in terests—as would give them the same freedom of thought in matters of religion and action as the people of England and Scot land now enjoyed, a freedom that raised them to their present unexampled pitch of prosperity and greatness. There might have been abuses in the Church. But if the Church failed, then reform it, but do not destroy it. Place a teacher in every parish, and give him a competence to enable him to render himself useful. They ought to circulate copies of the Scriptures among the people of Ireland, and then they would confer upon them the greatest blessing which they could accomplish for them. The House might rely upon it, that this Bill would not have the effect which was its professed end and aim. If persons conscientiously objected to tithe as tithe, because that was the fund which supported the Irish Church, they would also conscientiously object to a rent-charge as a rent-charge. He had been curious enough to look over the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction in Ire land, and he found that out of 1,440 benefices in Ireland there were no less than 855 in which the congregations were increasing, 495 in which the congregations were stationary, and only 91 where they were diminishing, and the cause of these diminutions was attributable to the neighbourhood of other churches and chapels, which had drawn their members away. He maintained, then, that the present was not the time to take any thing from the revenues of the Church on the ground of her diminution in numbers.
Viscount Morpethsaid, that the prin-
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ciple of this clause was one which had been so frequently and thoroughly discussed, and, in making the proposition which he felt it his duty to bring forward, he had entered at so great a length into the arguments and bearings of the question that he should not trespass very long upon the attention of the Committee. He was the more willing to use this abstinence, from his impression, in stating which he might he put down by assertion, but he did not think he could be by argument, that every fresh consideration of this question had led the House and the public to a better knowledge and appreciation of the truth of the principle on which he and hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House professed to ground their course, and also of the correctness of the details and calculations on which they had endeavoured to carry out the course they had adopted. He should endeavour to limit the few observations he had now to address to the Committee to matters more immediately connected with the present position of the question. His Majesty's Government had not expected, on the pre sent occasion, to escape the reiteration of imputations which, in spite of contradiction, in spite of confutation, had been so often cast upon them. The hon. Member for Scarborough had attacked his right hon. Friend the Attorney-General for Ire land. Now, his memory went far enough back to recollect an attack which the hon. Gentleman had made on his noble Friend, the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, when he (Lord Plunket) filled the office of Attorney-General. And, from what he could call to mind of that event, he was certainly induced to think that attacks on Attorney Generals were not amongst the most fortunate of the hon. Gentleman's reminiscences. The hon. Member for Kent had also addressed the Committee; and though the general terms of his speech were soft as snow-falls, yet they were not, he must say, altogether unmixed with some hard sayings against his Majesty's Ministers, containing the charge that the Protestant religion was not sufficiently appreciated by them. Now, he was willing to give the hon. Gentleman credit for an anxious desire to promote the Protestant religion; but when the hon. Gentleman persisted in saying that we did not in our hearts and consciences appreciate the value of the Protestant religion, which we professed, he must tell him that he was endeavouring to fathom motives which he could not reach, and departing from that

1209
spirit of candour which he no doubt wished to couple with the other virtues that adorned his character. With respect to the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last, he did not wish to grapple with that, because it did appear to him to carry on the face of it so arbitrary an assumption, that every thing which happened to be out of the pale of his own opinions and religion, must necessarily be immersed in flagrant error. For his part, he could only say, that he would not assert that salvation was not to be found within the Church of Scotland or the Roman Catholic Church. Now, for the sake of sustaining the correctness of the calculations which he had made on a former occasion, he felt bound to offer some few remarks on this part of the question to the Committee. The right hon. Baronet opposite, the Member for Tamworth, had, upon a former occasion, taken some of the items from our own computations in summing up the amount which would be necessary for the future maintenance of the clergy, according to the provisions of our Bill. He should be ready to go through the separate items, to point out the difference between the statement of the right hon. Baronet, and the calculations themselves, and he should not shrink from any inquiry as to the comparative correctness of the two statements; but he owned he thought this less worth while, because the right hon. Baronet had himself admitted that, according to the scale which we proposed, there would be an eventual surplus, for the gist of his argument consisted in this, that that surplus could only be made out by the sale of the Church lands. Now whilst he was ready to resist any attack on the principle on which the Church Establishment was founded, still he confessed he felt comparatively callous to those objections to be urged against the appropriation clause, which were merely founded on the large amount still retained for the provision of the Established Church in Ireland. The right hon. Baronet had pointed out some inaccuracy in that part of his statement which bore upon the question, on the number of members, and the extent of country attached to each pastoral cure in the churches of the three countries. Now it would be in the recollection of the House, that he had spoke subsequent to the time at which his noble Friend, the Member for North Lancashire, had made his motion; and if he allowed himself to be guided by his noble Friend's calculations, be did so be-
1210
cause he thought his noble Friend had too much of the skill, as well as the zeal of the advocate, to weaken his cause by any in correct statements in support of it. How ever, a mistake was undoubtedly made, and he was now most happy to give the Committee a correct statement. The noble Lord then read a statement, the substance of which, it appeared, was to this effect: — In England and Wales the number of benefices were 10,718, the average income 285 l. for each, the population 1,014, and the number of acres 3,460. In Scotland the number of benefices was 900, the in come for each 240 l., the population 2,000, the number of acres 2,148, and the square miles 23½ In Ireland the number of benefices belonging to the Established Church were 1,250, the average income 294 l., the population 681, and the number of square miles twenty-five. He considered it necessary to have said thus much with respect to the statement which the right hon. Baronet had made. The hon. and learned Member for Bandon (Mr. Sergeant Jackson) was pleased, in a speech which he made to the House on a former night, not only to throw a degree of general discredit over the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction, but also to bring for ward specific statements in support of his allegations. He (Lord Morpeth) had upon that occasion no opportunity of replying to the learned Sergeant, and if he had he must, necessarily ignorant as he was of the particular circumstances connected with this part of the subject, have done no more than express his entire disbelief in the ac curacy or justice of the statements which had been then made. Since that, he had been overwhelmed, or he might rather say flooded, with remonstrances from the parties whom the assertions of the hon. and learned Sergeant had affected; from Mr. Sergeant D'Oyley, Mr. Barrington, and Mr. Hamilton, and other gentlemen stated in the Commission, who expressed their opinions with an energy and warmth which he was anxious to dilute, and which made him desirous of believing that the hon. and learned Gentleman was a dupe, and not the originator as to those statements which he had made. These gentlemen requested, they required of him, in justice to their characters as gentlemen, and to their trust worthiness as men employed in the discharge of a public duty, to submit that explanation to the House, which he would do as briefly as he could, consistently with what was due both to the House itself and

1211
to them. The particular cases which the hon. and learned Gentlemen referred to, were four in number; the first, and that which alone he was bound in justice to say the hon. and learned Gentleman had a leg to stand upon, was with respect to the Kildare-street schools. The other three were with reference to the population re turns, giving the numbers belonging to the Established Church in each of the benefices. The first of these statements to which he would call the attention of the Committee, was from the gentleman who acted as secretary.
"Dublin, June 11, 1836.
" He first asserts that the Commissioners only report the number of schools 'under the Kildare-place Society' to be 235, whilst he states the true number to be 1,050. Now, it is Worthy of observation, in reference to these schools, that oh the 4th day of October, 1834, the Commissioners of Public Instruction, applied by letter to the Kildare-place Society for a return of the schools in connexion with it. The application was refused, but a series of annual reports were sent, ending, however, with that for 1831. These reports merely contained the list of the schools, of which the masters had received ' gratuities, as appearing to be deserving of encouragement.' A list like this could hare been of little value as a guide to the Commissioners at any time, but it was of no value at all after a lapse of three years, during which period, as is now stated, the changes had been so extensive, that the number of schools was reduced from near 1,700 to 1,050. Thus the society declined giving any assistance towards identifying their schools, as other like institutions did.
" In the next place the Report does not profess to state the different establishments ' under' which the schools may be for any other purpose than that of pecuniary support. The inquiry was a financial one. The heading of the Report, therefore, is "Sources of Sup port" of each school; and after referring, in about twenty instances, from the schools re turned in the Report of the Society for 1831, to the Reports of the Commissioners for the dioceses of Down, Connor, and Dromore, I find that every school has been reported upon, with the statement that its 'source of support' its 'payments by the children,' '101. a-year from Lord A.,' and the like. It may be very true that the Kildare-place Society give gratuitous rewards to the masters or grant-books for the children in every one of these cases, and thus entitle itself to number these schools among its dependents; but the society did not thereby become a 'source of support' in the sense in which that expression was understood by most of the visiting Commissioners, particularly the two who visited the above dioceses. In every case where it was shown that the
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schools derive pecuniary support from the Kildare-place Society, it has been so stated.
"There is, however, an obvious error in the General Report at page 15, where it professes to sum up the schools in connexion with the Kildare-place Society. This should have been explained as meaning a connexion in the way of support. That such must be its true meaning is evident, inasmuch as the. heads of the summaries cannot differ in kind from those of the Reports. The latter give merely the source of pecuniary support. How then could the former sum up both these and all other sources of reward, nominal connexion, &c.?
" Mr. Sergeant Jackson next alleges error in the Population Returns; and to prove this, asserts that the number of members of the Established Church, in the parish of Dromore, was returned by the enumerator as fifty-six, whilst the Commissioners have only reported forty-nine, insinuating that the motive was to reduce the number below fifty. Now, perhaps, the incumbent may have had the opposite motive; for it was proved by evidence, with which, as the visiting Commissioner informs me, the incumbent, after some time expressed himself satisfied, that he had included in his census of the parish a family not belonging to it. It appeared that these seven persons properly belonged to the adjoining parish of Killenane, and were assigned to it by the Commissioner.
"The enumerators had taken a wrong common boundary in 1831. The Commissioner merely adjusted the conflicting claims of the two neighbouring incumbents.
" Mr. Jackson next asserts, that he had seen the census made by the ' excellent clergyman' of the parish of Desertsarges, near Bandon, and that the members reported were fifty under the actual number of Protestants of the Established Church. Now it so happens that the number in the Report—namely, 432, is precisely the same as that given in the original census made and delivered to the Commissioner by the very same clergyman. The Commissioner took the number from the census; so that if what Mr. Sergeant Jackson states be correct, this ' excellent Clergyman ' has shown him a census differing from that which he had lately sworn to contain a true census of the population."
"The Right Honourable, the Viscount Morpeth, &c, &c."
The next was from Mr. Acheson Lyle.
" Gardiner's-place, June 11.
" MY LORD—In the Report of the debate upon the Irish Church Bill, Mr. Sergeant Jackson is reported to have said—'That Mr. Hudson of Springfarm, in the county of Wick low, had been requested by the Roman Catholic clergyman of the parish in which he re sided, to make a return of all the Protestants and Catholics employed by him, and he gave a return of fifty-six Protestants in his house and employment, and ten Roman Catholics.

1213
He received a letter from the Roman Catholic clergyman thanking him for the return, but when the Commissioner appeared in the month of December, a list was handed to him by the Roman Catholic clergyman of only thirteen out of the fifty-six Protestants. He asked again was it fair, was it safe, to act upon such a return?'
" As I was the Commissioner who visited the parish respecting which the above observations were made, I think it right to give your Lordship a correct statement of the facts, that you may be able (as I think you will) to correct the misrepresentation.
" Your Lordship is aware that both the census of 1831 and our enumeration was founded upon the number of inmates in every dwelling-house within the parish, those per sons only being reckoned in each family who slept in the house at the time the enumerator visited it. A return, therefore, of the number of persons, Protestants and Roman Catholics, who were in the house and employment of any person, could not have been adopted by the Commissioners, or used for any purpose. Those who did not reside in the house of the person making it, must be enumerated in their own dwelling-houses. Whether any such return was made by Mr. Hudson to Mr. Stennett, the parish priest of Delsany, I know not; but if it were, it is plain that it could have been of no manner of use.
"My report of the number of Protestants in Mr. Hudson's family was made from an original census of the Protestants made by the rev. Thomas Grey, the Protestant curate of the parish of Delsaney, verified by him upon oath, in which the number of Mr. Hudson's family is stated to be thirteen.
" The list made out under the directions of Mr. Stennett, the Roman Catholic clergyman, gives precisely the same number, as does the census made by the enumerator of the parish employed by the Commissioners, and both contain the names of many Protestant labourers in the parish who may have been in the employment of Mr. Hudson. It is a gross misrepresentation, however, to say that because they are not returned with Mr. Hudson's family, that therefore they have been subtracted from the Protestant population of the parish, and that our Reports are not to be depended upon.
" I inclose the original census made by Mr. Grey, and the list handed me by the Roman Catholic priest, which was made of each town land separately, in both of which you will see Mr. Hudson's family returned as consisting of thirteen persons, all Protestants.
" I understand that Mr. Hamilton writes you respecting the other misrepresentations in Mr. Jackson's speech, and I only therefore trouble your Lordship with the above, as it personally concerns me. I have the honour to be,
" My Lord, your obedient servant,
"ACHESON LYLE.
" The Lord Viscount Morpeth, &c."
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These documents proved the accuracy of the returns in every fact and particular attested in the Report. He thought, then, that the hon. and learned Gentle man would have done well to bestow a little more labour and attention on this subject, in order to ascertain the trust worthiness of statements, before he impugned the character of men equal to himself in station, and in no other respect his inferiors. He hoped at all events, that that House would learn to be circumspect in placing implicit reliance on general assertions and insinuations, however dignified or decorous were the channels from which they might happen to proceed. Now let the two propositions for the adjustment of this question be compared. The lowest amount of annual income, ac cording to this Bill, could not be less than 100 l. exclusive of glebe. Now, suppose they were to stop with the measure where it was proposed by the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire, and they were to leave out all the appropriating and re-distributing clauses, it should be borne in mind by the Committee, that it had been already decided that thirty per cent, should be deducted from the present amount of tithe-composition as the means of supplying the future rent-charge. Now, the number of the livings to which he had just alluded, and in which the income was limited to 100 l. per annum, exclusive of glebe, would, under their Bill, be 120 l. But let the Bill betaken divested of the appropriation clauses, and the income of this class of livings would then not amount at most to more than I00 l. a year without glebe (many of them falling far short of that sum), and the number of livings thus circumstanced would be 287. Thus it would be seen that those who had the most severe duty imposed on them would be worse pro vided for by the noble Lord's proposition than that of the Government. He had never pretended that this was a perfect measure; he had never pretended that if they were completely masters over the circumstances connected with the question, they might not have proposed a different adjustment of it: but what they con tended for, and what he on their part persisted in contending for was, that in comparison with the existing state of things this measure went far to correct the glaring inequalities of the present system. He was prepared to maintain that this. measure would hare the effect of much

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more nearly apportioning ecclesiastical revenues and duties; and, in addition to this advantage, it had this sovereign and crowning recommendation, that in the present perverse and lamentable state exhibited by the Church in that country, the clergy of which might well be said to be composed of militants or litigants—of men who were either starving or enduring the worst privations, or who were drawing down upon their heads the curses of those who were supposed to be their flocks. I don't, said the noble Lord, say that this is a right state of things. I don't say that it is either proper or Christian that it should so continue, but I only lament that such is the fact. Much better would it be in my opinion, if instead of sanctioning a system by which the clergy of the Established Church are either compelled to eat the bitter crust of want and dependance, or to spill the blood of those intrusted to their spiritual care, as well as to endeavour in vain to hush the cries of their families for bread, the Committee were to accede to the present Bill, unshorn and undivested of that principle, which perhaps for the last time may be now made available towards effecting an immediate settlement of this question, and supplying an assured provision to the existing clergy. Coupling then the other provisions of this measure with that which has, I am led to believe, the sanction of public opinion, without which no adjustment can be real or satisfactory, we hope and think that there is sufficient advantage resulting from it to the bulk of the people to induce them to give it their cordial acquiescence.
Mr. Sergeant Jacksonsaid, that after the attack which had been levelled against him by the noble Lord who had just sat down, he hoped he should be permitted to maintain the statement he had formerly made to the House, and to show that the noble Lord was but little grounded in his doubts as to the accuracy of that statement. He had stated to the House nothing in reference to the Commissioners of Public Instruction he was not prepared with documentary evidence to sustain. He had not imputed, or even attempted to impute, improper motives to the gentle men composing the body of Commissioners; but he certainly did undertake to prove (and he thought he had succeeded in proving) that the returns made by them were, to say the least, incorrect. With the permission of the House he would
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now proceed to make manifest the accuracy of this his assertion. The noble Lord opposite had thought fit to treat lightly on the subject of the returns bearing upon the schools in Ireland in connexion with, or receiving assistance from, the Kildare-place Society. Now, the returns of the Commissioners in these respects showed upon the very face of them the grossest and most uuaccountable inaccuracies— inaccuracies such as must go a great way towards demolishing any faith or confidence which otherwise might rest upon other portions of the Report. Now, no thing could have been easier than to take an account of the schools actually in existence, with the number of children of all persuasions receiving instruction in those schools, instead of counting head by head the Protestant population of Ireland. But here it was the first inaccuracy arose. He had stated to the House, when he last addressed it on this subject, that with regard to the archdiocess of Armagh the Commissioners of Public Instruction had not returned a single school in connexion with the Kildare-place Society as belonging to or being situate in that see. The noble Lord had been pleased to have recourse to special pleading upon the contents of the Report in this respect, but if the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ire land, would look to the returns, he would find that for the three diocesses of Dromore, Down, and Connor, not a single school in connexion with the Kildare place Society was returned, and the noble Lord's ingenuity would be put to the test to reconcile this omission when he stated the facts as they existed. For this omission he referred to page 4 of the summary of the Report, under the head of the province of Armagh, and there it would be found that credit was given only for 235 schools in connexion with, or receiving support from, the Kildare-place Society. Now he begged to state that in those diocesses the Kildare-place Society had more schools than the Commissioners gave them credit for in respect of the whole of Ireland. The number of schools in connexion with or receiving assistance from the Kildare-place Society in the diocesses of Down, Connor, and Dromore, nearly approached 300. The Kildare-place Society had on seeing the Report employed inspectors—gentlemen, who, without disparaging the Commissioners of Public Instruction, were quite their equals, were

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sent down to visit these schools, and they returned to the society the most ample particulars in relation to them, especially in the three diocesses which he had mentioned. These Gentlemen visited the schools, saw the masters, and inspected the correspondence, and he (Mr. Sergeant Jackson) could prove that in the districts to which he had alluded, not only 150 schools exist, but also that returns of those schools were actually furnished to the Commissioners. He held in his hand one return, a counterpart of which had been given to one of the Commissioners, viz. the hon. Mr. Strangwayes. To that Gentleman the inspectors of the Kildare place Society applied on the subject of this return, a duplicate of which was sent to the Commissioners at head-quarters. Mr. Strangwayes was applied to for it; but that hon. Gentleman replied that he had not received it from the board of Commissioners, and then a counterpart was furnished to him. This counterpart contained a return of the number of schools in the parish of Bollymoney and elsewhere in these districts, in reference to which no returns had been made, and be found that there were eleven schools of which the document he held was silent, though it contained information as to the number of children attending those schools, classifying the Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian, and Protestant children, and all these were in close connexion with the Kildare-place Society. Nay, more, he had the means of proving that with regard to 159 schools in these very diocesses in which none were said to exist, returns were furnished to the Commissioners of Public Instruction. Now, if he were disposed to impute motives, this he thought would be the instance on which he ought to make the assault. Despite this information, the Commissioners had not returned a single Protestant school—despite this declaration they were silent. Look again at St. George's parish, in the county of the city of Dublin; the Commissioners had returned about four schools situate in these districts. The Commissioners of Education had, in the years l824,1825 and 1826, returned twenty-nine schools, while on the other hand, the Commissioners of Public Instruction had returned only four, while in the parish of St. George alone there were twelve schools still existing. Now what excuse could be offered for this negligence? What reliance could justly
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and properly be placed upon such parties. It was a curious fact to observe, with regard to these returns, that the Commissioners of Education Inquiry in Ireland in 1820 and 1825 returned 11,823 schools in Ireland, whilst the Commissioners of Public Instruction had informed the House that, in 1835 and 1836, the number of visitants amounted only to 9,567, being 2,256 fewer in number than the schools reported in 1824. He did not precisely understand the meaning of the cheers of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny. (Mr. Finn) because he could tell the hon. and learned Member that education, instead of retrograding in Ireland, had actually and positively advanced very considerably since the year 1824; for though the number of schools might have diminished, the number of scholars attending the still existing schools had increased, the numbers of scholars in 1824 being 568,964 and in 1836, 663,946. These facts he could prove on oath before a Committee or any other tribunal which the House might think fit to appoint. He was pre pared also to prove that the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction, as far as it related to the Kildare-street Society, was given with the grossest inaccuracy. The first parish to which the noble Lord opposite had referred was the parish of Dromagh, in the county of Kerry. With respect to that parish the Knight of Kerry had stated to him, that although only forty-nine Protestants were returned, there were, in fact, fifty six Protestants in that parish. Since then a letter had been written by the clergyman of the parish to the Knight of Kerry, to place in his hands, in order that he might state the fact to this House, that in that parish there were now, not forty-nine but sixty-three Protestants. With such information he had felt it no more than his duty to communicate it to the House. He asked whether, under existing circumstances, he was not justified in making use of that information. The noble Lord had next referred to the statement, he had, on a former occasion made with respect to the state and condition of the parish of Dysart, in the county of Cork. The noble Lord had attributed the information which he Mr. Sergeant Jackson had received on this head to the rev, Mr. Longfield.—Now, he had never referred to the rev. Mr. Longfield, the incumbent of the parish, who was

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very old gentleman, totally unable to per form all the duties of the parish. The statement he had made was, that a voting gentleman, the hon. and rev. Mr. Bernard, had gratuitously undertaken the duties of the parish, and that, being 80 engaged, had shown him a book containing entries of the names of every Protestant individual in the parish entries not made for the purpose of checking the returns of the Commissioners but for the purpose of enabling him to perform his duties as a Protestant clergy man. This book, compiled from actual visits paid to Protestant families in the parish, showed that the number of Protestants was fifty more than the number returned by the Commissioners, and the accuracy of those returns Mr. Bernard was prepared to prove on his oath at the bar of this House. The next case adverted to by the noble Lord was that of Mr. Richard Hudson, the clergyman of a parish in the county of Wicklow, a gentle man wholly incapable of falsifying any statement. That Gentleman had returned to the Roman Catholic priest the number of Protestants in his employ as being fifty-five persons, and though he had done so, the number in the Commissioners' return was set down the number only of the actual inmates of his House. He did not, nor had he ever meant to say, that these returns were false; but he had stated, and he now repeated the statement, that it wag not safe, but, on the contrary, that it would be folly and madness, to act on these reports. With regard to the trifling mistake made by the noble Lord opposite, on a former occasion, in his calculations, as to thirteen instead of twenty-five miles being the circuit of each parish, as pointed out by the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, he understood from the explanation of the noble Lord, that he now admitted the error into which in this respect he had fallen. In conclusion, he (Mr. Sergeant J.) must apologise to the House for having thus again trespassed upon their attention, but he felt thus much necessary in justification of himself, and in order to show that he was not without grounds for the statements he had made.
Mr. Hewitt Bridgemansaid, that in the part of the county of Clare, where he re sided, there were two school-houses in connexion with the Kildare-Street Society, but in neither of them was there a school-
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master. One of them was occupied by the coachman, and the other by the gardener of the brother-in-law of the hon. and learned Gentleman.
Mr. Sergeant Jacksonsaid, that they had both been occupied by schoolmasters, till, from the violent opposition of the priests, parents were deterred from sending their children to be instructed there. The manifest object of the priests was to stop all scriptural education.
Mr. Finnwished to know whether the two schools in question, which were now occupied by the coachman and the gardener of Captain Scott, the brother-in-law of the hon. and learned Gentleman, were re turned in the calculations which the hon. and learned Gentleman had made out?
Mr. Sergeant Jacksonsaid, they were not. No schools were in the returns which were not at this moment in active operation.
Mr. Sheil: The hon. and learned Gentleman has pronounced a funeral oration upon the Kildare Street Society. That body is, for all Parliamentary purposes, extinct. The right hon. Member for Tam worth withheld the grant to it, and it is somewhat singular that the learned Sergeant did not recollect, while he was inveighing against the new system of education, that the Members for North Lancashire and for Tamworth, with one of whom the new system originated, the other of whom continued, and even augmented the grant, were beside him. But let not our attention be diverted by any thing of so small account as the Kildare-Street Society, and the minutiae of its merits, from the great question on which the destinies of Ireland depend, and which is before the House. I come to that question, and to the great principle on which it rests; for it has been agreed that the discussion upon its principle shall to night be taken. Some persons are of opinion, that after the very significant intimation which has been given by that House, which is sometimes called the Upper, (and it must be owned that its | tone corresponds with its designation,) it is useless to carry this Bill through its remaining stages in this House, and worse than useless to send it, for the purpose of abrupt repudiation, to the House of Lords. I do not concur in that view. I do not think that this Bill will suffer by the condemnation of those to whom every opportunity ought to be afforded of confirming the impression which they have taken so much pains to produce in their own regard.

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If they will not do justice to Ireland, let us give them means enough to perform another act of justice, of which Ireland will not be the object. For my part, notwithstanding the temporary obstacles in the way of this measure, of its ultimate success I have no doubt. I believe, I feel, I know the truth to be on our side, and in the greatness of truth, and in its inevitable triumph, I enthusiastically confide. Mark the progress which this question has made within the last four years. In 1832 it was treated with a disregard amounting almost to disdain; and now we not only command a majority of this House, but I firmly believe that the majority of the English people are on our side. I repeat it. In this, the Peel Parliament, we have a majority of the representatives of the people, and by that test I abide. The people of England begin to feel that the Ecclesiastical Institutions of Ireland are not adapted to its condition—that its wealth is far more than commensurate with any service which it has rendered, or is capable of Tendering—that it has not answered any one purpose for which an Establishment ought to exist—that while the money of the people circulates amidst the Church, the religion of the Church does not circulate amongst the people—that even with the aid of the Exchequer as a propaganda, it is not likely that Protestant ism will be diffused, and that the interests of true religion are not likely to be advanced by the recurrence of such incidents as those which have attended the exaction of the ecclesiastical revenues; and when the people of England see Ireland distracted by the Church, every project for her improvement arrested by the Church; when they see that you are yourselves infested by our rabid animosities, and that Cabinet after Cabinet has been dissolved by this fatal question, the two Houses of Parliament are advancing to a collision, by whose shock the whole fabric of our legislative system may be shaken to the centre— when, I say, they see these things passing before their eyes, the people of England ask themselves this plain and pregnant question, "where are the advantages by which such results shall be countervailed?" Sir, I think it sufficient to peruse the preamble of this Bill, and to reflect upon the facts and inferences which that preamble contains, in order to be convinced that this question must be settled,
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and that the principle upon which the Bill is founded affords the only basis on which it can rest. I shall go with rapidity, I hope with perspicuity, through the pre amble of the Bill. It commences with a reference to facts; and rightly—for it is as well that we should observe the shadows which events have cast behind. The pre amble states that the Legislature has been repeatedly baffled in the collection of this fatal impost. This has held good for more than a hundred years. If the ponderous folios of the Irish Parliament were upon that Table, I should be able to prove that almost every Penal Act has some reference to tithe. "Laws," says Arthur Young, ' which were fit only for the meridian of Barbary, were passed to re press excesses which oppression in the ex action of tithes had produced. "The Riot Act," says Grattan, "was a Tithe Act, and the White Boy Act was a Tithe Act." It is now upwards of seventy years since that great man raised his voice in the Irish Parliament, to exhibit those anomalies against which we are to this day protesting—a Catholic people, a Protestant Church—millions upon one side, thousands upon the other. Against this monstrous abuse, this inversion of every course of policy, with a matchless eloquence he unremittingly and vehemently inveighed. That illustrious man, whose devotion to his country, whose elevation, moral and intellectual, was never disputed. is no more: he lies hard by—the depository of the glorious dead; one of the greatest statesmen ever produced by Ireland was borne by its greatest warrior. It was a noble and heart-touching sight to see Arthur Duke of Wellington sustaining the remains of Henry Grattan to the grave. I wonder—I shall be pardoned by the illustrious survivor for wondering—when sadly and slowly he laid him down, the great captain whispered to himself, that it would have been well if the policy of his great compatriot, from whom he differed in life, but whom in death he honoured, with regard to their common country, had, at an earlier period been adopted. He has lived to carry that policy upon one great question into effect. I remember, it would in deed be difficult to forget, his exclamation, when, in speaking of the necessity by which concession was dictated, he protested that, rather than his country should for a single month be exposed to the horrors of a civil war, he would gladly lay down his

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life. It was a noble sentiment, worthy of that conjunction of humanity and of heroism which is found in the truly brave. Would that those who were perpetually giving way to a dark and sanguinary wish, who say that it must come to a fight at last, who deal in frightful innuendos, and who would shed blood as heedlessly as they quaff wine—would that they could impress that merciful sentiment upon their own hearts, and that the celebrated person who gave it utterance would extend it beyond the question to which it was applied; and in following up that great measure to its necessary consequences, in order to avert the evils that impend upon his country, he would wake to the crowning immolation. I have deviated for a moment from the course which I had prescribed to myself. I return to it. I may perhaps be told, that I should not revert to events which, without being irrelevant, are remote. Why, indeed, speak of the Whiteboy Act, when an Act passed in 1832, and appropriately associated with a celebrated name, is so close at hand? True. Since the date of that Act how many calamities have befallen? I shall not dwell upon them; they are vivid in the public recollection. The blood with which they are writ in the annals of the country is too fresh. Enough to say that it is on all hands agreed that that Act must be relinquished. The Tories gave it up, and the Member for Lancashire has virtually denounced it, by proposing a reduction of twenty-five per cent. This has become inevitable. But in 1831 had our advice been taken, this sacrifice might have been avoided; England would have saved a million; events which all must contemplate with grief, and some with remorse, would not have befallen, and a distinguished individual would have us caped the somewhat mortifying necessity of sharing in that spoliation which in terms so unmeasured he so virtuously denounced. Something, then, must be done. What shall it be? The Church Commission shall inform us. The second paragraph in the preamble refers to this Commission; of its origin I shall only say that it was issued by Earl Grey. Gentlemen hint that his Lordship is not favourable to appropriation. See how they deal with that eminent man: they avail themselves of his supposed authority, and when he adjures them to pass the Municipal Bill, not like a partisan hot from the contests of faction, but like a soothsayer from a temple, when he comes forward to
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point to the dark and gloomy likelihoods that lower upon us, they reject his admonitions with disdain. Of the origin of the Commission I have said thus little; of its results I shall not say much more; I shall insist but on a single fact that stands prominent in the midst of a great mass of details. There are in one province in Ireland forty-five thousand Protestants, and one million one hundred thousand Catholics. Propose a new distribution after that! New distribution! until new appropriation became irresistible, of new distribution you never spoke, of new distribution you never thought, no not even when Queen Mab was with you, and tickled you with a tithe-pig's tail, of new distribution you never dreamed. This single fact is sufficient to establish the surplus, if there were no other. I proceed to the last paragraph—it states two things; first, that the spiritual wants of the Irish Protestants are to be provided for; next, that the surplus shall to the purposes of moral instruction be applied. What are the spiritual wants of the Irish Protestants? How much money do they want? The Scotch Church has not three hundred thousand pounds; why should the Irish Church have more? Because the Irish Church has got Bishops. You cut them down to twelve; they are not to be more; how does it appear that they ought not to be less? Why should the primate have more than the Lord Chancellor? The Bishop of Derry more than Chief Justice? Your difficulties about a surplus are imaginary, and are, indeed, of your own creation. Apply the principle of the Church Temporalities Act, and a surplus will be straight produced. You diminished the number of Bishops; why should not the number of parsons be also cut down? You provided that benefices in which divine service had not been performed for three years might be suppressed. Do not suppress, but consolidate, and the difficulty is at an end. But how is the surplus to be applied? To none, it is said, but Protestant ecclesiastical purposes. But I shall not enter into abstractions; it is far better to devise some construction of the words "ecclesiastical purpose by which all differences may be adjusted." When men are determined to quarrel, they find ingredients for hostility in a word; when men are anxious for accommodation, they discover the materials for friendship in a phrase. How fortunate it would be if we could devise some liberal but not illegiti-

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mate interpretation, by which the purposes of Christian morality and all the feelings attached to it could be promoted, even if it were necessary to strain an expression, and it might perhaps be justifiable to do so, in order that peace might be extracted from it. But no violence need be done to language in order to obtain from ecclesiastical purpose what I may venture to call a benevolent, a Christian introduction and, considering all the evils it may remedy, a merciful signification. Sir, I insist that the instruction of the people in the precepts of morality is a Protestant ecclesiastical purpose. The truth you believe to be with you (for the sake of argument let it be for a moment supposed): the in creased intelligence of the people must be subservient to its propagation. You perpetually (in my opinion without the least reason) complain that the priests, for their sinister purpose, keep the people in darkness; that ignorance is an expedient of sacerdotal dominion, and that they avail themselves of their barbarism for their subjugation. Break the chain; throw off the yoke, and educate the people. You have tried every other resource of proselytism—confiscation, penalty, national de gradation—all has been resorted to except public instruction; put this experiment to the test. But supposing that the augmented instruction of Ireland will not contribute to the extension of Protestant ism, surely the diffusion of moral habits is a purpose which every Christian Church must have at heart. Protestants do their religion injustice in assigning to it such narrow, contracted, and exclusive purposes. It is only necessary to peruse the Book of Common Prayer to feel that peace among all Christian people was among the chief purposes contemplated by the men by whom the manual of your national devotion was drawn up. You pray for peace amongst all Christian people; you kneel on the velvet cushions of your churches, and offer up for peace a pious invocation; but when from the temple you turn to the cabal—when from the offices of piety you turn to the business of partisanship— peace and charity cease to be ecclesiastical purposes, and you give to them a disastrous interpretation. But in seeking for a benevolent construction to what better evidence can I resort than the very prayer from which its daily use ought not to take its reverence, and which, if ever it was applicable to our discussions as a preliminary invocation in reference to this Church ques-
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tion, is most happily appropriate. This day the respectable chaplain of this House, on the behalf of every man that hears me, no matter what may be the difference of sect, offered up an orison for the union and knitting of men's hearts in the brotherhood of Christianity together. I appeal to the sentiments and to the language contained in that benevolent invocation, in order to rescue your religion from the misrepresentations of its professors. These sentiments and that language are the language and the sentiments of every Christian in every part of the world where the prophecy in regard to the name of our Redeemer is fulfilled. Yes, Sir, the knitting of men's hearts together in the brotherhood of benevolence, the propagation of the habits of pure Christian morality, the diffusion of those feelings of forbearance and of charity which teach us to love one another, is a Christian purpose. It is, I hope, a Protestant purpose—it is, I am sure, a gospel purpose. When, to shepherds abiding in the mountains, attending flocks by night, it was announced that there should be glory to God in the highest, with that angelic intimation there was associated a prediction scarcely less holy, that there should be peace on earth. But for us there is in the name of religion to be no peace; there is in the name of religion to be malice, hatred, and ill-will: in the name of religion, our distractions are to be perpetuated, and our rancours are to be exasperated; every bitter spring of calamity, every fountain of atrocity, is to be unsealed; the soil is to be drenched in the blood of the people, and at last, in the name of religion, the fell horrors of civil warfare are to be let loose. To God, we were told a few days ago, to none but God, are the men on whose decision our destinies must rest responsible. In the smile to which that unexpected announcement gave rise, I did not participate: oh that they would feel that the men who abuse the power to do good, by the infliction of incalculable harm, to the power which reads the secrets of the heart are indeed responsible, and that for the calamities in which they will have been instrumental, they will have to pass a terrible account.
Lord Stanleysaid, that if any persons came to that House to listen to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Member for Tipperary, in the expectation of hearing well-turned and highly polished sentences and richly-ornamented declamation, they would seldom be dis-

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appointed, and certainly would not have been so on the present occasion. He would admit that the hon. and learned Gentleman well deserved the tribute which those cheers paid to his oratory, but he must add, that if any had come with the expectation of hearing a great mind grappling with a great question, with sound arguments deduced from solid premises, they would indeed be greatly disappointed, and while they might admire the ingenuity and consummate talents with which he had cloaked his subject, they would have to regret that from the beginning to the end he had studiously concealed any allusion to the merits of the Bill before them. He would challenge any hon. Member to point out any single part of the hon. and learned Member's speech in which he had adverted to the merits of the Bill under discussion. He fully joined with the hon. and learned Member in what he had said of the Protestant religion, inculcating glory to God on high, and on earth peace and goodwill to men. The hon. and learned Member was quite right in applying his remarks to that all but perfect ritual of our Church. He would not speak on that subject in any tone of levity, but he might say that the great principle of our religion was, that it adapted itself to the state of society, and that one of its first principles was, resist not the ordinances of God—resist not the laws—render to every man his due—and take care that you owe no man anything but universal love. The hon. and learned Member had said, that the people of England were in favour of this Bill, and he deduced that conclusion from the assumption that the representatives of the people were favourable to it. If that were so, he called upon the hon. and learned Gentleman to speak out, and tell the people of England what the real objects of the Bill were. Let not the hon. Member, and let not the Members of his Majesty's Government delude them selves with the hope—a hope which could not be much supported by their diminishing majorities—that the people of England were prepared to adopt a measure, the great recommendation of which, in some quarters was, that it would lead to the annihilation of the Church of Ireland. "The people of Ireland are with you!" —" Are they?"—continued the noble Lord. Tel] them your objects—tell them the flimsy pretexts on which they are
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founded—tell them your prospects, and that no peace is to be for Ireland until those prospects are realized; tell them the good will to the Church of Ireland of a large number of those by whom this measure is supported, and then let them tell you whether they are favourable to such a measure. Let his noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) look to his majority on this subject; let him analyze it in the secrecy of his closet; and then let him say how many of that majority he believed to have voted for this Bill, solely from the desire of a reformation in the Church, and who, having obtained that object, were not disposed to go further. Let him separate those who were prepared to go with him and stop where he would stop, from those who would go much further, and who only went that far with him, in order at some fit time to urge him to go further with them, and then he might be able to say who were the supporters of the Church and who were opposed to it. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had said, that the people of England were beginning to ask themselves this question, "of what use is the Church Establishment at all?" If that were so, then, in God's name, let it be openly discussed, and let it be put to the people of England, Scotland, or Ireland, to say ay or no, whether we were to have the Protestant religion or not. Let the real object be honestly avowed, and give the people an opportunity of deciding upon it. He hated this sort of bush-fighting—this fighting with a shadow which they could not touch, while the substance remained behind. The course adopted by the supporters of this Bill was, to say the least of it, most disingenuous. If the opponents of the mea sure objected that the purpose of the Bill was to destroy the Church of Ireland, they were met at once by a loud disclaimer. Nothing it was, said, was further from their intention than any injury to the Church—all that they wished, it was added, was that an extravagant and bloated Church should for its own security be brought within dimensions proportionate to its intended purpose—all, forsooth, that the supporters of the Bill wished was to take off that surplus which was not wanted by the Church, which they would apply with the utmost care to the purposes of general education; and they added, that the object to which the surplus should be applied should be "strictly Protestant purposes."

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That was, that education, no matter in what way given, was "strictly a Protestant purpose." "Who," said the hon. and learned Member, "is opposed to education.'" So said he, who was? He was not, but, added the hon. and learned Gentle men, if you wish the spread of Protestantism you should give education, which will enable the people to break the chain by which they are kept down in ignorance, and emerge from the yoke. [" A loud cheer."] He would offer no comment on the interruption of the hon. Member, who had obtained some little celebrity by his exhibitions in that way, but he owned he would rather hear an answer to his argument in its proper time, than an interruption, though that interruption might show the want of argument. But to resume; he would say, that if education was the thing which was so much wanted in Ire land— and far was he from denying its ad vantages—if education were so essential to the pacification of that country, why not ask the means from the Parliament of England? He was sure that there was no sum too high, no sum which could be considered too great, for such a purpose. There was no sum which Parliament would not be disposed to grant to produce such desirable results. And when the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Sheil) stated that this sum was to be applied only to Protestant purposes, he must, without disrespect, say, that though he agreed in the object as far as education was concerned, he must withhold his assent from the purpose. The hon. and learned Member himself must know that there was some thing beyond education in the purpose for which this sum was sought. There was a disposition to carry it further. The Catholics were the majority, it was said, in Ireland, and he admitted the fact; the Protestants were the minority, and that he also admitted; but the inference which some parties were disposed to draw from these premises was this—that the Catholics being the majority, the whole of this Church property should belong to them. He would ask those who interrupted him, if the present Bill was to be the be-all and the end-all of the question of Irish tithes, and that the matter was to go no further? Was there any one of the hon. Gentlemen opposite who would say so? Would any of his Majesty's Ministers come forward and Say, that the present was to be a final and conclusive measure? If not, then with what face could any hon. Member
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come down to that House, and say that this part of the Bill was for the promotion of education, and for that only? But would this grant for education, of which so much was said, settle the matter?— would it prevent any further agitation of the question? Undoubtedly it would not. He had been charged with having introduced a principle similar to the present in the Church Temporalities Bill. He denied the fact. The changes proposed in that Bill were to take effect only when the livings became void. But the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Sheil), with a sort of logic of which he might well be ashamed, had said, "You have cut down ten bishoprics because they were found too numerous for the necessities of the Church, and why not on the same principle reduce the number of clergy? Now, what was the argument used when that question was under discussion before that House? It was this—that the number of Bishops was disproportionate to the numbers of the clergy, not that the clergy were more than were necessary. And now, when the revenues of the reduced bishoprics were to be applied to the improvement of the smaller livings in Ireland, the hon. and learned Member drew the illogical conclusion that the number of the clergy should be reduced, and thus reduce the proportion of the clergy still lower. It was next said, that the number of the clergy was too great for the number of the Protestants of the Established Church in Ireland. He was prepared to take his stand upon that question. He was aware that he had been accused by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny of having on a former occasion objected to the disproportion of the clergy and the numbers they had to teach, but he was then only showing that hon. Members, according to their own data, were wrong in the principle which they adopted. The principle of this Bill, he contended, was a dangerous one, as it gave the state a pecuniary interest in cutting down the revenues of the Church, and thus it set the State, as it were, against the Church. That principle was a bad one. But, in addition, he had this objection to it, that it was worked out by dangerous machinery, and any one who would take the trouble of looking over the clauses of the Bill would find it. The state had a pecuniary interest opposed to the Church; but what were the powers by which that evil tendency was to be corrected? What were the powers of the

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Commissioners? and he begged the attention of the House to this:—The Commissioners were to be the sole judges of the changes which were to be made under this Bill. They alone had the power to decide every question. The Lord-Lieutenant was a mere cipher in their hands. They had power according to their discretion to unite or disunite benefices, to fix the boundaries, and to give new names to the new benefices thus made, and to fix the income of each, to arrange as to the glebes which should belong to each. These were considerable powers as related to the Irish Church; but who were they by whom those powers Were to be exercised? Were they men distinguished by their attachment to the Established Church? Nominally, at least, they must be Protestants, but beyond that they were the mere creatures of the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, and they must be the creatures of any Minister, and must do his bidding, whether he were attached to, or a member of the Established Church or not. Now, what were the restrictions on these men? The Bill took care that the salary of the Minister should not exceed a certain amount in any case. There was a maximum as to income, but there was no maximum as to extent of duty. There was a starvation point, it was true, below which they could not go. The Commissioners might extend the duty, though they had not the power to extend the in come in the same proportion. Why, then, the whole Bill was a failure. It was one-sided, it was admitted, that if the whole income of the livings of England and Ireland were equalised, the result would be, that in Ireland each living would be 294 l., and in England 285 1.— a very near approximation. In Ireland, according to one statement, the congregations would average 640, in England 1,017, including, according to the noble Lord, Dissenters. [Lord Morpeth: He had not meant to include Dissenters.] He had so understood his noble Friend; but he was glad to be corrected. The average number of members of the Church of England in the parishes of England was 1,017. In England the average size of the parishes was five miles square; in Ireland the average size of the parishes was twenty-five miles square. Now, he was sure that his noble Friend would not pretend to maintain that a clergyman who did duty in a parish
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twenty-five miles square, containing 640 inhabitants of his persuasion, had not a much more laborious task than a clergyman who did duty in a parish only five miles square, but having 1,017 in habitants of his persuasion. Nor, he was sure, would his noble Friend contend, that 294 l. was an exorbitant average of salary for a clergyman of the Church of England doing duty in a parish five-and-twenty miles square. His noble Friend stated, that under this Bill there would be only 129 clergymen in Ireland, with incomes under 100 l. a-year, while now there were 287 so situated; and had exclaimed, "See what an improvement this is!" But nobody thought of leaving things as they were. But his noble Friend had not stated the case fairly. He forgot, that under the provisions of the Bill, of 1,250 benefices, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners might, if they thought proper, reduce 799 to 100 l. a-year. Now, he could not con sent thus to leave the pecuniary interests of the Protestant Church Establishment in Ireland subject to the caprice of any Government. He could not sit down without adverting to another fallacy on this subject. His noble Friend, at the head of his Majesty's Government, had, with a rashness which belonged to a younger man, admitted, in the other House of Parliament, that the Bill would inflict a heavy blow on the Protestant interest in Ireland. Let it go forth to the people, that the Prime Minister of England acknowledged that the measure he proposed would inflict a severe blow on Protestantism in Ireland." I know, "said the Premier," that we are inflicting a severe blow upon Protestantism in Ireland, but (let the House mark the sequel) we cannot help it. "Was this a fit argument for the Prime Minister of England to use?" We know our measure is dangerous to the Protestant Established Church—we know that it inflicts a severe blow upon Protestantism; but we cannot help it, and we cannot help it because we are driven on to it by those who are aiming at other things —because we can neither defend our mea sure on its own merits, nor resist the power of those who compel us to adopt it." The House was told they must give contentment to 7,000,000 of Irishmen.— [Cheers.]—Perhaps, the hon. Gentleman, whose cheers were always so significant, and which sometimes drew down upon him a degree of notice not usually ex-

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tended to other Members, would tell him, from the accurate investigation he had made into all the merits of the Bill, whether, when by his significant cheer, he ex pressed so ready and decisive an opinion, he thought, varying in that respect from all the rest of the House, that this mea sure would afford the slightest degree of contentment to the 7,000,000 of Irishmen who were spoken of [cheers.] Let him (Lord Stanley) say, that out of this 7,000,000 there were somewhere about 1,500,000 who had no direct interest whatever in the settlement of this question; and that fact the hon. Gentleman, who should know as well as he (Lord Stanley) could tell him. But then it was said, it was not the amount of the reduction that was to be considered, but the feelings of the people, [cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Nottingham, cheered that expression; then, of course, he was quite prepared to go to the full extent required to gratify the feelings of the people of Ireland. That being the case, let the right hon. Gentleman take, not his (Lord Stanley's) authority upon the point of what would be requisite to gratify the feelings of the people, but the authority of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. O'Connell), who, upon all occasions, declared himself to be the representative of all Ireland; that was to say, of the 7,000,000 whose perfect contentment this Bill was to insure. And let him ask, whether the hon. Member for Kilkenny, in a recent publication addressed to the people of England, had held out a prospect of that peace on earth, and good will towards men, which it had been promised should follow the adoption of this Bill. In that publication the hon. and learned Gentleman said, reduce the Established clergy thirty per cent.; apply 50,000 l. a-year of the revenues of the Church to the purposes of general education; but the hon. and learned Gentle man said nothing of the 40,000 l. which was to be appropriated to the Consolidated Fund; and he (Lord Stanley) would say nothing of it either. It appeared, however, from all that was stated upon the Report, that of the 90,000 l. to be deducted from the revenues of the Church, 50,000 l. only were to be devoted to the purposes of education. But when the hon. and learned Gentleman, in his address to the people of England, spoke of the application of that sum to the purposes of education, did he hold out the slightest prospect that such an
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application of the revenues of the Protestant Established Church would afford anything like perfect contentment to the 7,000,000 l. If, then, they were told that the present measure, though it were, as he believed it was, objectionable to the people of Eng land, though it inflicted, as a Prime Minister had declared, a severe blow upon Protestantism in Ireland—though it were carried only by a bare majority in the House of Commons, and opposed by a very great majority in the House of Lords—if, in spite of all this, they were told that the Bill was still necessary, for the sake of giving contentment to Ireland, was it too much to re quire, was it unreasonable to ask, what that contentment would be. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in his address to the people of England, said, "The rev. Mr. Longueville insists that I shall pay him 50 1. a-year for tithes; and because I deem this demand, as it manifestly is, most unjust and unreasonable, he causes a bill to be filed against me in the Court of Exchequer;" but the hon. and learned Gentle man did not say, that if this Bill passed he should be content to pay seventy per cent, of the present amount of tithe to the rev. Mr. Longueville. On the contrary, he said, alluding to Mr. Longueville," I think my religion better than his; and, there fore, I never will pay him one shilling— no, not one farthing." Here was a distinct assertion on the part of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that he never would pay one farthing in the shape of tithe to a Protestant clergyman: and why? Be cause he thought the religion he professed better than the religion of the State. That might be the hon. and learned Gentleman's private opinion; but was the Legislature to sanction or to recognise the doctrine of every man who thought his own religion better than that of the State. But if the Legislature did not do so, how could they expect to give contentment to the 7,000,000 of Irishmen, every one of whom, no doubt, thought his religion better than that of the State. It was impossible that the Legislature could do so, and, therefore, following again the advice of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, which they had often done before, very much to their own detriment it could not be doubted, that even after the passing of this Act they would continue their resistance to the payment of tithe.—[Mr. O'Connell: The noble Lord states what is untrue.]—The hon. and learned Gen-

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tleman will allow me to say, (continued Lord Stanley) he is the last man who ought to make use in this House, or else where, of offensive expressions such as that which he has just used—most indecently interrupting me.
Mr. O'Connell: I rise to order. Have I not a right to express my feelings when a charge is untruly made against me. In the first place, the noble Lord garbles my letter. I repeat it. I repeat it distinctly, that the noble Lord, in the first place, read garbled extracts from my letter. In the next place the noble Lord said, that the people of Ireland had often followed my advice to their detriment. When such assertions, so foreign from the fact, are made, I conceive that I have a right to reply to them. If such a mode of argument is unworthy of any man, it is still less becoming in the noble Lord, whom I have observed shrink from every man in the House but me.
The Chairman The Chairman, interfering, said, I would remind the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, that he will have ample opportunities of replying to the speech of the noble Lord in a regular manner.
Lord Stormont Lord Stormont, amidst great confusion, rose to order. He felt it to be a duty he owed to the House to ask the Chairman (Mr. Bernal) whether, in the exercise of his functions as Chairman, he conceived it to be within the bounds of order that such words should be allowed to pass from one Member towards another as within the hearing of the House had passed from the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny towards the noble Lord. The words used by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, in reference to the observations made by the noble Lord, were these— "That is untrue." He begged to ask, whether the use of such words came within the bounds of order.
The Chairman: When a question upon a point of order is thus directly and formally put to me I have not the slightest hesitation in replying to it. Strictly speaking, no one hon. Member has a right in the course of a speech, or after a speech, to say it is not true. But then I must appeal to the recollection of every hon. Member present to bear me out when I say, that however this kind of expression may not be warranted by the strict rules of debate, unfortunately it is but too much warranted by example. Since I have had the honour of sitting as Chairman of Com-
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mittees in this House I have heard many hon. Members, under the surprise of the irritation at the moment, contradict, in perhaps no very courteous terms, particular allegations made in the speeches of other hon. Gentlemen. But upon the present occasion I will not shrink from giving a direct answer to the direct question which has been put to me, and there fore give it as my opinion, that such expressions as the noble Lord has de scribed, passing from one hon. Member to another, are not in order.
Lord John Russellrose and said: Undoubtedly, what you have said, Sir, upon the point of order, is perfectly correct, and I have not the slightest hesitation in saying, that, in my opinion, the interruption of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny was most disorderly. But I now appeal to you, Sir, that in the future part of the speech of the noble Lord opposite you will not allow him to be making charges against this side of the House, imputing to us that we are not acting upon our own opinions, but that we are driven on by others to adopt a course which in our hearts we do not approve. [Interruption. After a brief interval Lord John Russell continued.] I say (said the noble Lord), that, according to the orders of the House, no hon. Member ought to attribute motives to others. The noble Lord has attributed motives to us of a most scandalous nature.
Sir Edward Knatchbull: Sir, you have been called upon to interfere upon a point of order, and you have most properly per formed, as far as you have gone, the duties that devolve upon you as Chairman of the Committee. But I humbly submit to you and to the Committee at large, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman who has been guilty of the disorder you have pointed out ought not, before the noble Lord (Stanley) adverts to any other public topic, to offer some explanation of his conduct. I leave the matter in your hands, Sir, satisfied that you will call upon the hon. and learned Gentleman to explain.
Mr. O'Connell: I am quite willing to withdraw the words which have given of fence. If the progress of the debate depend upon my doing so, and if they are pronounced out of order by the Chairman, I withdraw them cheerfully and at once; but, at the same time, I caution the noble Lord against indulging in such attacks as

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called forth this unguarded expression of feeling from me.
Lord Stanleycontinued: It appears that my noble Friend (Lord John Russell) has taken umbrage at some expressions contained in my speech. I only think it would have been more consistent with the rules of the House if my noble Friend had reserved any observations he felt it necessary to make upon that point, until he had the opportunity to make a general reply. This, at least, would have been more regular than to take the opportunity of introducing his observations in a discussion upon a point of order arising out of the interruption given to the regular progress of the debate of another Member. I do not conceive that I am passing the legitimate bounds of Parliamentary discussion when I say, that the members of the Government, and when I found my assertion upon the declaration of the Prime Minister, that he is doing that which he knows will inflict a grievous injury upon Protestantism, but that he cannot help it. I think I am not passing the bounds of Parliamentary freedom of speech, when I give as my interpretation of the text afforded me by the Prime Minister, that the Government as a Government, are driven to the adoption of measures such as men acting upon their own individual judgments, would be desirous to avoid.
Lord John Russellrose to order. I was, perhaps, to blame for not interrupting the noble Lord when he used these words in the first instance; but as he has now repeated them, I will not evade the opportunity of pointing out why I conceive them to be disorderly. I can conceive nothing conveying a greater imputation of dishonour to any set of men, than the assertion that they are driven on by others to adopt measures which, in their hearts as individuals, they would be anxious to avoid. I should have thought, indeed, that the noble Lord would have been one of the last to prefer such a charge, because, however others might have been ignorant of it, I should have thought that the noble Lord, of all men, knew the difference of opinion which long prevailed in the Cabinet, of which he was a member, on this subject. The noble Lord having now repeated the words which I conceived to be objectionable and disorderly, I am now obliged to ask you, Sir, whether it is in order for any hon. Member to lay upon any Member of the
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Government a charge which implies, as I conceive, the greatest dishonour, and which could not be attributed to any individual Member of the House without a palpable breach of the order of debate.
The Chairman: The Committee will see the great difficulty of the situation in which I am placed. I repeat the expression—the Committee must not only see, but I should hope it would feel, the difficulty of my situation. If I were spontaneously—[does any hon. Gentleman re fuse to hear the opinion of the Chairman after it has been asked?] I say that the difficulty under which I am placed is not one of a light nature. If I were spontaneously to interrupt every hon. Member who transgresses the rules and orders of the House, I should indeed have a laborious duty to perform. I abstain from doing so, because I am afraid of protracting the business of the House; but at the same time, I trust I shall never be deterred by any feeling, from taking the proper course when any hon. Member seriously transgresses the rules of the House. If I be directly appealed to, to say whether it be disorderly or not for one hon. Member to attribute motives to another, I can only reply—undoubtedly it is; but the noble Lord must pardon me if I say that a distinction is to be drawn between the application of particular terms to individuals, and to bodies of men. Undoubtedly, if motives of an atrocious nature were imputed either to the Government as a body, or to a Member of the House, in his individual capacity, I should feel myself bound to interfere; but, at the same time, I must say, that I consider the charge made by the noble Lord (Stanley) in the course of his speech to-night, and which he has just now repeated, is one which I expected would not be objected to at the present moment as disorderly, but one which would be refuted, in the progress of the debate, by some of the noble Lords or right hon. Gentlemen, who sit on the right of the chair. I certainly did not consider it as of a nature imputing dishonourable motives to the Government, and therefore I did not interfere.
Lord Stanley: I am of your opinion, Sir, that in the observations I made, founded as those observations were upon the declarations of the Prime Minister, I did not transgress any of those rules of order which govern the conduct of debate in this House. If ever I am so unfortunate as to

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do so, I hope I shall, at all times, be found ready to bow at once to the decision of the Chair, and express my regret that any hasty language of mine should have been the cause of interrupting the progress of the discussion. The noble Lord then continued to observe, that the argument he was pursuing at the time he was interrupted was, that if the great inducement held out for the adoption of the Bill, was the producing a feeling of contentment amongst a large portion of the people of Ireland; he wished, in the first instance, to be satisfied, before he made the sacrifice demanded of him, that the general object for which it was made was likely to be obtained; and in order to show that this Bill would not effect that object, he was stating the opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, who accused him of garbling his letter, and whose attention he therefore now ventured to request to some passages taken from the same letter which he was about to quote. The hon. and learned Gentleman proceeded, in a subsequent part of his last address to the people of Great Britain, in these terms: "Let me add, however, that in the case of the Catholics there is a feature of greater strength, and more distinctness. It is this: here tithes were instituted, there glebes were set apart, not by Protestants for Protestant worship, but by Catholics for Catholic worship. They were ours; we assigned them for our purposes—the purposes of the ten thousand—the force of law, or rather the law of force, has unjustly torn them from the Catholics, whose property they were, and given to them the 200 Protestants, whose property they were not." What was the inference to be drawn from this passage? With such opinions addressed to them, what sort of satisfaction was a measure such as the present likely to give to the people? What, too, was the heading of this letter? "Justice— justice for Ireland." "Here tithes, there glebes," said the hon. and learned Gentleman," were ours —they were unjustly torn from us—you, the people of Great Britain, do justice, and restore them to us." There would be some sense, some reason, some logic in that argument; but there is no sense, no reason, no logical deduction to be found in the proposition, which, after the premises laid down by the hon. and learned Gentleman in his letter, says, "Let us take from the revenues of the Established Church a miserable portion
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for the purposes of general education, leaving the whole of the remainder to Protestant uses. Let us give nothing to the Roman Catholics, who formerly had all, but let us apply a small portion to the purposes of general education, and then the people of Ireland will believe that you have done them justice, whilst at the same time they have this letter of the hon. and learned Member in their hands, and they will be contented, and all will be peace and tranquillity." But the hon. and learned Gentleman went further, and said, "The people of Ireland are moderate, they are easily satisfied, they do not demand all this at present. Less would now content them. Yes; but for how long? The right hon. Gentlemen opposite were prepared to do all that was now necessary to satisfy the demands of the Irish people—let him just point out, in the words of the hon. and learned Member, what those demands were. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded his address in these words:— "Well, the Irish are, at present, more moderate,—less would now content us— we desire to have tithes totally abolished; or if any part remains to be levied, that it shall be applied to the purpose of giving education to all classes of the people. We do not, at present, demand the glebes for the residence of the pastors whom the people prefer; but I candidly acknowledge that, as the contest continues and grows warm—as the Protestant clergy identify themselves with the wholesale slaughterers in the field, and with the more vexatious and exasperating villainy of the Exchequer attorneys—as the ideas they excite are of the Rathcormacs, red with the blood of the sons of widows, or of the odious Exchequer rebellious writs—all connexion with religious institutions is forgotten, and the Irish Juggernaut of plunder and massacre stands prominent, as demanding those sacrifices which we formerly thought were only made to a mere difference in religion. The time is, from these causes, fast arising when a compromise will be impossible; and those who now refuse an amicable and moderate arrangement, will have to blame themselves when a similar arrangement shall be rejected indignantly, contemptuously, by the people of Ire land." A compromise impossible! — a compromise upon what terms? The total abolition of all tithes, and the application of whatever might be left of revenue to the Established Church, to the purposes of

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general education. This was the amicable and moderate arrangement which, according to the hon. and learned Gentleman, the House would have to blame itself for not adopting. Did his noble Friend the Secretary for Ireland (Lord Morpeth) re collect the discussion which took place in that House two or three days ago? Did he recollect how many of those hon. Members, who assumed to themselves the claim of being the representatives of all Ire land, voted on that occasion? Did his noble Friend recollect, that the division took place upon an amendment moved in his own Bill? Did he recollect that it was a motion for the total abolition of all tithe—for the exemption of all persons of all religious persuasions whatever, from the future payment of tithes in Ireland? Did his noble Friend recollect, that of the twenty-two representatives of Ireland who voted on that occasion, four only, including the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, were found to support the motion of the Government, the other eighteen voting at once in favour of the proposition for the total abolition of tithes. This, then, was a specimen of the sort of contentment which was to be afforded by this Bill to the 7,000,000 of Irishmen who professed the Catholic faith. With such an instance before him, he thought it was not too much to say, that the arrangement pro posed to be made by this Bill, would be neither final nor satisfactory. His noble Friend knew, and knew well, that it was perfect illusion to suppose that the mea sure could be final, or that it could be satisfactory. In the adoption of the present Bill, Government would be introducing a dangerous principle, carried into effect by dangerous machinery, and guarded by no provisions of a restraining kind. It was a measure which would tend to the destruction of the Protestant Church in Ireland. The Prime Minister himself had admitted that it would give a great blow to Protestantism in that country. It was obvious that it would give no contentment, and yet all the arguments in favour of the Bill were rested upon the general assertion, that it would not injure the Protestant Church, and that it would give contentment to the Irish people. He said that it would do neither one nor the other, and he trusted that the Government would see before long, by their diminishing majority in that House, that they had the people of Eng land against them, and against their plan
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of dealing with the property of the Church in Ireland, in the same way as he was satisfied that plain sense and plain reason were against it; and that they would never be permitted, under the fallacious hope of effecting a compromise, to sacrifice the Irish Protestant Church, and the maintenance of the Protestant religion in Ireland, to arguments which, if they meant any thing at all, led to this necessary conclusion, that for the Protestant there should be instituted a Catholic ascendancy in Ireland.
Mr. Poulterbegged in explanation to say, that in reference to the point alluded to by the noble Lord (Stanley,) he (Mr. Poulter) was now aware that he should have referred to the Tithe Commutation Act, and not to the Church Temporalities Act.
Mr. O'Connellhad not intended to trespass on the attention of the House on this occasion. His opinions upon the subject now under discussion had been so often expressed, that he thought the House must be weary of hearing them. But the noble Lord had rendered it impossible that he should be wholly silent. The noble Lord had selected a happy illustration in favour of the present measure from that very letter of his (Mr. O'Connell's), from which he had quoted some passages. It was stated in that letter, that in one parish in Ireland, 9,990 Roman Catholics were made to pay tithes to a Protestant pastor, who had only a congregation of 77 Protestants, being the whole amount of the Protestants in that parish. He supposed that this was all in consonance with the reason, the common sense and the sound logic, of which they had heard so much from the noble Lord; but was it Protestantism? Whilst such things were allowed to continue who was it that gave the blow to Protestantism? Was it he who insisted on the plunder of the 9,990 Roman Catholics to supply the spiritual wants of 77 Protestants, who never saw their clergy man? Or was it he who said that this was a state of things which brought scandal upon the Protestant Church, inflicted an injury upon the Catholic people, and ought therefore to be discontinued. Nay, it was a fact, that in the instance to which he had referred the Protestant clergyman had never slept three nights in his parish since he had been in possession of the living, though it was true that he had, on one occasion,

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taken the trouble to go all the way from Bath or Cheltenham to Ireland for the purpose of giving a vote against him at his election for Kerry. Was this Protestantism? He maintained that the noble Lord (Stanley) was the bitterest enemy to Protestantism. The noble Lord's disposition towards Ireland was very well known, and when he spoke of the condition of that country it was with pleasure, with animation—nay, for once, there was even a smile upon his countenance which re minded him, as Curran happily said of another man, of a silver plate upon a coffin. The noble Lord had read a pas sage from his (Mr. O'Connell's) letter, which would imply that he was against any compromise on the subject of tithes. If the noble Lord had stopped short in his extract such an inference might have been drawn from the first part of the passage; but luckily for him (Mr. O'Connell) the noble Lord had, in the vehemence of his feelings at the moment, a little overshot the mark, and instead of confining himself to a portion, read the whole of the passage, in the latter part of which it was not only implied, but directly stated, in the broadest and most direct terms, that there was now a prospect of a moderate and reasonable arrangement; and he said further in his letter, and he repeated the same assertion now, that all those who refused to accede to that moderate and reasonable arrangement, were enemies to the Protestant Church in Ireland. He was ready to prove this. What was the first Bill brought into Parliament upon the subject by Lord Hatherton? It was a measure which would having given to the Protestant clergy in Ireland 77 1. 10 s. per cent, upon their tithe composition throughout Ireland, payable at the Treasury. That Bill the noble Lord (Stanley) opposed; and then, to be sure, he talked to them of his noble Friends. He thought he had shamed the noble Lord out of the use of that term. Instead of noble Friends, noble thimble-riggers he should have call ed them. He had heard the noble Lord call his previous colleagues his noble Friends one moment, and the moment after describe them all as thimble-riggers. No phrase, indeed, was too vulgar for the noble Lord, provided it were virulent enough. Well, the noble Lord opposed this Bill, giving 77 l. 10s. to the clergy. And why? Was there any appropriation clause in it? No, there was no appro-
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priation clause in it? But the noble Lord. opposed it because he was a friend to the Church. The Bill was rejected by the Lords, who would also, in spite of reason and argument, reject this Bill, because it contained an appropriation clause. When the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, came into power, what was the Bill which the gallant Officer opposite (Sir Henry Hardinge) brought in? A Bill reducing the income of the clergy from 77 1. 10 s., which was the amount fixed by his (Mr. O'Connell's) Bill, to 75 l. a-year. The noble Lord (Stanley) supported that Bill; and it would have been carried through the House of Lords if it had met the sanction of the Commons. But was that all? Last year another Bill was brought in and passed this House; it contained an appropriation clause. How much did that Bill give the clergy? It gave them 72 l. 10 s., five per cent, less than his Bill gave them. In the Committee of the House of Lords that part of the Bill was adopted. And these were the friends of the Protestant Church? These were the friends of the clergy, who charged him with wishing to deprive them of their property? If the majority had consented to have given up the appropriation clause, that Bill would have been law at the pre sent moment. What had happened since? By the Bill now before the House, the clergy would get 67 1. 10 s., exactly ten per cent, less than the Bill which he had pro posed would have given them. This was what the common sense and logic of the noble Lord had done. Was he not right, then, in warning the noble Lord and his party, that they would not have such another opportunity of arranging this question as was now presented to them? The noble Lord, in commenting upon the letter which he (Mr. O'Connell) had ad dressed to the people of England, omitted to notice that part of it in which the con duct of the clergy of Ireland was signalized by their proceedings in the Court of Exchequer. Did the noble Lord think that that conduct had made no impression in Ireland? "I tell the noble Lord (said the hon. and learned Gentleman) that a com promise he may get this year. He may not get it next year. I had almost said, he shall not get it next year. Every hour is diminishing; the value, and increasing the price." That was the style in which the noble Lord gave protection to the Church of Ireland. He had intended in

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Committee on this Bill to have proposed a plan which would have given satisfaction to the people of Ireland, at least for a time? Did any man believe that any Church Bill merely would give satisfaction to Ireland, when the people of that country had the basest of outrages inflicted upon them by the basest of men. Was there the slightest hope that while the people of England and Scotland were enjoying Corporation Re form, and the people of Ireland were declared unfit and unworthy to enjoy those rights—as long as that injustice was done them, and done them too, as he had heard, though it had been denied, upon the ground of their being aliens from this country, it was impossible that satisfaction could be given to Ireland. Yes, that was another and an additional insult cast upon his country. But the plan he was about to propose was not that the amount should be reduced to 70 1., and 21. 10 s. for the collection, but that it should be reduced to 60 l., and that ten per cent, should be collected from the quit-rents of the Crown lands in Ireland, and which were now applied to beautify towns in England, but which ought to be applied to the benefit of Ireland. This would make 70 l., and the 21. 10s. he should propose to be given as a bonus to every tithe-payer who paid his tithe. That, with the appropriation clause, would have satisfied those who were now calumniated as being the enemies of the Protestant Church, and who, at all events, would be paying men to that amount from whom they derived no service whatever. If that plan were adopted, he was quite convinced that at present, at least, it would be accepted with gratitude, and would lay one of the foundation stones for the tranquillization of Ireland. But he did not propose that motion, nor would he. The noble Lord had talked of the motion which had recently been made for the total extinction of tithes, and had referred to the division upon it. He (Mr. O'Connell) opposed that motion. He did so, because he knew Ireland as well as any noble Lord or hon. Gentleman in that House. He knew the festering of their souls under the recent conduct they had experienced; he knew the indignation that they felt; and he knew that they expressed not their judgment, but their resentment, when they divided upon that motion. He knew that. But he knew also, that if this Bill proceeded to the House of Lords, and held out even the hope of doing justice to
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Ireland, for he would repeat that phrase till he had carried it into effect, it would not pass. And why did he say so? What had been the effect of the accumulated majorities in this House in favour of a measure of justice to Ireland? Did they make one single allusion to it? What hope then was there, that by whatever numerical majority a measure favourable to Ireland might be carried in this House, it would be more favourably received by the House of Lords? Why the Commons were treated with as much contempt as if the majority were but a unit, as if the measures this House had passed were carried by a solitary vote. But that House bore such insults patiently, for they never were wearied in persecuting Ireland. For six hundred years the same system had been pursued towards Ireland. When the Irish petitioned Edward the 3rd, who was called the English Justinian, to admit them into a community with the English, and to share the protection which they enjoyed, what was the answer? He referred their petition to the great Lords, and what was their reply? That it was not for their own interest that the Irish should be admitted into a community with the English. That was the answer given in the year 1336, just 500 years ago; and here was a noble Lord just 500 years afterwards, as ready as ever to carry that resolution into effect. The difference of race was the first pretence—aliens in blood; a difference in religion was the last pretence—aliens in religion!—the cruelty always the same, the paltry excuse varying. It was now the sublimity of the Protestant Church. Why what was it to the Irish who did not believe in the Protestant Church, who did not think it the best? The Protestants were quite right, who thought it the best, to use it as an argument, but to the Catholics it was no argument at all. The noble Lord had not attempted to deny that the glebes now in the possession of the Protestant Church, were originally dedicated to the pastors of the Catholic people. But this, and all other property, the Protestants continued to plunder from the Catholics, until they extinguished the legislative independence of Ireland by the Union—promising with that union to give to her people a community of rights, privileges, franchises, and liberties with the rest of the empire, but which promise had never yet been fulfilled. Then, at the end of twenty-nine years after Ireland had forced them to give

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emancipation, they did it in that pitiful and paltry manner so as to bring the legislative body in collision with an individual. And now, in the present Session, behold what their conduct was! Why, he was told that it was perfectly safe for the other House to act as it did. He had heard it asked, what harm had accrued to the Lords from the course they had taken? What harm? Was it no harm to be convicted in the mind of every just and honest man of injustice? But nothing would operate upon such minds. Persuasion had no force with them. He had heard one young gentleman to-night, while talking of the rights of the Irish, by way of a set-off, ask, had not the English rights, too? He would ask, whether any English Member had ever stood up in that House for the rights of Englishmen who had not been supported by Irishmen? Why, then, did the hon. Member taunt him with the rights of Englishmen? Did he conceive that the English were not powerful or free without having the pleasure of trampling upon Ireland, and without being able to gratify that spirit embodied in the noble Lord, who was governed by a species of half fanaticism, which might be religion but was not charity? But no matter what the majority of the Commons was, this Bill would be rejected by the House of Lords with an alacrity of rejection peculiar to that body when acting for evil. He should not have risen if the noble Lord had not spoken; but he had now declared his mind freely. This Bill, if passed, might conciliate the people of Ire land. It contained a principle which was valuable; the principle of appropriation, which, if honestly and justly applied, might put an end to that spirit of ascendancy which was originated in crime and maintained in blood. Yes, it might have that effect; but he despaired of its being allowed to pass. He was ready now to give his utmost aid in carrying it into effect; but he would not promise to do so next year.
Mr. Shawsaid, that there appeared, on the part of the House, so general a desire to divide, that after having risen, he had again resumed his seat; but as he saw the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) intended to speak before the division, he (Mr. Shaw), making every allowance for the exhausted state of the House and the subject, would say a very few words in answer to the small portion of the speech
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of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) which bore upon the question before them. He would endeavour to abstain from the violence of language and manner which characterised that speech. He would not attempt to defend the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) who sat near him, from the virulent personal attack the hon. and learned Gentleman had made upon that noble Lord; it was, indeed, easy to conceive that the noble Lord entertained a sense of high, and noble,' and generous friendship of which the hon. and learned Gentleman could form no just idea; and the noble Lord could bear up against the lesson the hon. and learned Gentleman had read him on vulgarity, while the hon. and learned Gentleman illustrated his own estimate of good breeding, by comparing the countenance of the noble Lord to a tin plate upon a coffin. But as to the only two points of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman which touched upon the present debate—his letter, referred to by the noble Lord, and the Amendments the hon. and learned Gentleman had proposed to the Bill proposed by Lord Hatherton, when he was Secretary for Ireland. First, with respect to the letter, the hon. and learned Gentleman asked the noble Lord was there logic or Protestantism in maintaining a Protestant Establishment in a parish where the majority of the people were Roman Catholic?—but the hon. and learned Gentleman did not venture to deny the just inference of the noble Lord from such an argument as that—that the present Bill, which the Government professed to support, on the ground of its giving permanency to the established Church in Ireland, could never be satisfactory to the hon. and learn ed Gentleman, and those with whom he acted, upon any other principle than as being a first step to the consummation they so devoutly laboured for, and nothing short of which would satisfy them—the entire annihilation of the Protestant Establishment in Ireland. Then with regard to the Bill which the hon. and learned Gentle man properly denominated his Bill, he maintained that that Bill did, in substance, if not in form, contain an Appropriation Clause, for it took forty per cent, from the permanent property of the Church and gave it to the landed interest, at the same time also making a present advance to the clergy out of the Perpetuity Purchase Fund —the hon. and learned Gentleman thus offering a part of the spoils to each of those whom he invited to become parties to

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the spoliation; but they indignantly rejected the proposition; and what was the hon. Gentleman's subsequent comment upon it—that all he had meant in destroying the Protestant Church was, "to make two bites of the cherry." It was quite contrary to the fact, as stated on the other side, that the friends of the Church had never proposed plans for its improvement, until the question of appropriation had been raised. His right hon. Friend on his right (Mr. Goulburn), and many other friends of the Church, had introduced various improvements into the tithe system, and into the Church itself. He must, be fore sitting down, deny the statement of the hon. Member for Tipperary, that the voice of the people of England was in favour of that measure; where did the hon. Gentle man find that voice? Was it in Devonshire? in Staffordshire? in Northamptonshire? or more recently in Warwickshire? No. And he was confident that the noble Lord opposite would not find it that night in the votes of the people of England's representatives. The English were a practical people; they would not be satisfied that the time of the House and the country was taken up with discussing the abstract principle of a non-existing surplus, in legislating upon a mere hypothesis; with that House practising a wilful delusion, while they neglected the settlement of the great and important question of tithe property and church improvement, to which the friends of the Irish Church were ready to assent; but the truth was, this Bill went to form, not to dissolve unions—to create, not to abolish pluralities—to prevent, in stead of enforcing residence; and, so far from encouraging the working clergy, it was to take from them the means of their employment and subsistence. He entreated the noble Lord to lay aside for separate consideration this appropriation clause, which the noble Lord well knew had served the purpose for which it was originally introduced, and set himself and the Government in good earnest, and in conjunction with the friends of the Church, to the equitable adjustment of the important question of tithe property, which the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, had described as so necessary for the peace and tranquillity of that country.
Lord John Russellspoke to the following effect: Although most unwilling, after so many debates upon this subject, and at this time of the evening, when the House is desirous to come to a division, to prolong the debate; yet I
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submit to the House, that the grave and serious charges, involving the honour and character of the Administration, which have been made by the noble Lord, make it impossible for me not to trespass upon its attention. When I put it to the Chair, whether the noble Lord, in urging such charges, was acting according to the orders of the House, I was told, that it was difficult to hold to the strict line of order, but that the Chairman took it for granted that an opportunity for a reply to those charges would be given. Now, Sir, it is in conformity with that opinion stated by the Chair, and in which I think the justice of the House will acquiesce, that I venture to implore your attention, while I give some reply to the charges which, as I have already said, although I might have expected them from others, although I should have little attended to them from the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman who has just down; yet, coming from the quarter that they came from, and surprising me as they do coming from that quarter, I cannot consistently, with the respect I owe my own character, omit to notice. Sir, the amount of the charge, as stated by the noble Lord, and as re-asserted in a different form by the right hon. Gentleman, is this, that upon the question now under consideration we have been driven by others, that we have been controlled by others, and, finally, that this clause has been introduced for some purpose, which purpose, as it has been sometimes expressed, and as it was clearly indicated throughout the speech of the noble Lord, was that of introducing a question on which we had no settled opinion, with the view of defeating the Ministry of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I am obliged, therefore, to ask the attention of the House while I most unwillingly refer to something which passed when the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and myself were colleagues together, and which at this distance of time, and after the noble Lord's attack, I feel myself at liberty to speak of. When the noble Lord and I were colleagues in 1832, the noble Lord stated in this House, the opinion which he has since so frequently and so consistently stated with respect to the Irish Church. I stated, on the other hand, that that Church was too great, not only for religious purposes, and for instructing the flock committed to it, but that it was too large for its own stability. At the latter end of 1832 or in 1833, a plan was prepared for the consideration of the Cabinet of that

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day, in accordance with the views of the noble Lord, but containing no appropriation for the benefit of the great mass of the people of Ireland. I did not conceal from that Cabinet; above all, I did not conceal from the head of that Cabinet, nor from the noble Lord, my decided opinion, that some part of the revenues of the Church of Ireland ought to be devoted to purposes of instruction, in which Roman Catholics might participate. Sir, the noble Lord who now charges me with being driven into this opinion, and who countenances and abets in this House the charge that we are basely endeavouring to retain office by means of upholding an opinion which is not ours, but which was forced on us by others, that noble Lord has heard from me, as his Col league, sentiments as decided—if possible, more decided—than those which I have at any time uttered in this House upon the subject. I committed those opinions and sentiments to writing, in the form of a letter to Lord Grey, with which I in tended to accompany my resignation of office; but I found that my resignation would have brought on, in a very short time, as he assured me, the resignation of Lord Althorp, who was then the leader of the Ministerial party in this House, and might ultimately have broken up the Cabinet. I was told by a Colleague whom I esteemed, and with whom I have the honour now to sit in the Cabinet, that the breaking up of the Ministry at such a time, just after the passing of the Reform Bill, when the party of the right hon. Gentle man opposite was so diminished, and when the country considered that the Government could only be conducted by Earl Grey—I was told that I should be taking upon myself a very awful responsibility, and that it might be the means of preventing the settlement of quiet and good Government in this country. I yielded to these opinions, but I did not yield to them without informing the noble Lord, the Member for Lancashire, that, although I agreed to support the Bill of which he was the author, and though I agreed not to divide against any clause in the Bill, yet that I maintained my own opinions; and that I considered the Bill as only the commencement of reforms and changes which I wished to introduce, and that, when that change was completed, and when Parliament should have given its assent to that Act, I should consider myself at liberty to bring forward and support the principle of
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which I had been, with others, the advocate in the Cabinet. What was that principle? the very principle which the noble Lord now spoke of, as if it were an opinion taken up by me yesterday or to-day at the dictation of others. Well, Sir, I believe I shall not be contradicted either by the noble Lord or by my light hon. Friend, the Member for Cumberland, when I say, that I did sup port that Bill heartily and effectively in this House. Indeed, my right hon. Friend, the Member for Cumberland, quoted some passage out of the speech which I then de livered, while speaking upon the 147th Clause, to show that the opinion which I entertained at that time, and which I believe at the present time, was correct, that it would not be for the advantage of the country at that moment to create a division and break up the Cabinet on the question of appropriation, but that it would be better to carry the measure, then under discussion, without mixing up that question with it. As soon as that Bill had passed, I remember—I know not whether my right hon. Friend, the Member for Cumberland, will recollect it, but if he has any recollection of the circumstance he will confirm me in it—that I told him i that my opinion was the same as ever, and I begged him to inform the noble Lord, the Member for Lancashire of it, if he thought fit; but, at all events, I desired him to receive it for his own information, that I considered myself at liberty at any time to moot in the cabinet and in Parliament that question, namely, the question of appropriation of Church revenue to purposes not now strictly called ecclesiastical. Well, Sir, in the course of the following year that question came to be a matter of discussion, and I was ready at the time, as far as I could, to defer for one year that division in the Cabinet which was evidently approaching, but I declared, and that openly, in my place in this House, that if ever there was a just complaint of a people, it was the complaint of the people of Ireland against the appropriation of the Church revenues, and that if it caused me to make the sacrifice of parting from those with whom I was united in affection and respect, yet I thought the cause was so mighty and important a one that I should not hesitate to make that sacrifice. The opinion of the majority of that Cabinet was in favour of the opinion which I professed, and the noble Lord, with three of my other Colleagues, retired from office upon that very question,

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it being distinctly understood what was his opinion, on the one hand, and what was our opinion on the other. And, Sir, the House, I hope, will forgive me, after words used by me having been quoted, and opinions attributed to me from a misapprehension of those words, if I quote some observations which I made that very Session. I said, "after having declared against the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland, I at the same time see nothing inconsistent or wrong in the appropriation of a part of any surplus of the Church revenues to the purposes of education, which, while it is a religious and moral education, shall also be of such a nature as will allow Roman Catholics as well as Protestants to partake of it equally." That is the opinion given by me on 23rd of June, 1834.* In the course of the same autumn the right hon. Baronet opposite came into power, and he, instead of declaring that he was ready, as we were, to consider that question, and to avow that there was nothing wrong in such an appropriation, declared directly that the principle of his Government was to resist such an appropriation. I found myself compelled then, as I had maintained that principle in the Cabinet of Lord Grey, and as I had declared in this House, that we would not go on another year, without asserting it in Parliament, when I was asked whether the questions of the Irish Church and of the Irish tithes were for ever to re main unsettled. I felt myself compelled, in conformity with the opinions I had al ready expressed, to declare that principle in the House, and to move that the House should agree to a resolution upon the subject. During a great part of the time that I have just gone over, the hon. and learned Gentleman, the Member for Kilkenny, was in opposition to the Government. In 1834 he was very much opposed to the Government, declaring his mistrust of our intentions. At a later period, indeed, when I brought the question forward, he, of course, seeing the resolution was in conformity with his own views, supported it. And now I ask the House, such having been my opinion for so long a time, both in the Cabinet and in the House, whether the imputation of the noble Lord can be well founded which has been thrown upon us? And, above all, I will ask whether, although it might be repeated as a useful cry by some of the retainers of the party of which the
* Hansard, (Third Series) vol. xxiv. p. 801.
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right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Tamworth, is the head, whether, if among the cries, the imputations, and the calumnies of party, it was unavoidable that such calumnies should be used, still I ask the House, and l ask it with all solemnity, whether the noble Lord, the Member for Lancashire, ought to be the person to use it? The noble Lord says, that the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny has written a letter, in which he declares that he will not pay, and never will be satisfied while he is required to pay tithes, and he proceeds to quote other opinions of the hon. and learned Member. Sir, that hon. and learned Gentleman, in the exercise of his own judgment, and in his own view of what is best for Ireland, has supported the present Government. The present Government has received from him undoubtedly strong, and, I must say, very fair, and honourable support. But I never found that the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny ever gave up or at all renounced any one of his opinions upon the many subjects which have engaged his attention— opinions varying from ours, and which he carried to a much greater extent than we have ever been inclined to go, calling for Reforms not only with respect to the Irish Church, not only with respect to Irish tithes, but with respect to many questions relating to the domestic policy of this country. But, Sir, if the hon. and learned Member has not given up, or retracted, or swerved from his opinions, I think I may say that upon this subject, at least, we neither have changed our opinions. I ask you to look at the votes which we have given during this and the past year, and I will ask whether those votes have not been in conformity with the principles which we have always professed, and whether we have altered, or bent and retracted those opinions in order to make them conformable to those of the hon. and learned Member? Sir, my pre sent opinions upon the Irish Church are the opinions which I have long held as an individual; the opinions which my Col leagues hold are those which they hare held as individuals, and upon which they thought that some settlement of this question might be obtained. After all, this imputation, however much it may serve to round a period, and create a cheer in the debate—and no doubt this imputation has been framed for some such purpose—is directly contrary to every man's experience in this House who has had a seat in it during the last four years. I say it is so

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contrary to all the experience of the House, that I own, I do wonder, although the retainers of the party may be permitted now and then to utter it, that any of the more respectable among them should be induced to give utterance to a charge so altogether devoid of any foundation in fact and in truth. The noble Lord has asked me to look at the last majority on this question, and to analyse that majority, and see if I shall not find many persons in it who wish to destroy the Church of Ireland, and to carry measures much further than I do. I might ask the noble Lord to look back to the majorities upon the Reform Bill, and upon many other Bills, in which he concurred, and he will find men of various opinions concurring with him. Let him look upon the majority when the Reform Bill was first brought forward, and lost by one vote. Were there not in that majority advocates of universal suffrage, and many who called for far more extensive changes than that which we advocated? Did this circumstance afford any grounds why those who considered the measure calculated to benefit the country should not bring it forward at all, or having passed it, should not abide by it? My opinion is, that the present measure, if passed, gives a fair prospect of the settlement of the question; and upon this point I must refer to what I have been told is a more correct representation of what fell from my noble Friend at the head of the Government, than has been quoted on the other side of the House. I have been informed, then, that what my noble Friend at the head of the Government, said was, that though the measure of last year might be felt as a severe blow, or severe shock, by the Protestants of Ireland, yet that he considered that there could not be framed a measure which would more firmly secure the Church of Ireland, and that at all events the Church would be thereby rendered far more secure than by letting the question alone. Such are the sentiments which fell from my noble Friend at the head of the Government. With respect to this present measure itself, with out going back to the subject of former de bates, I must say a few words both as to the representations which have been given of the opinions of this House upon this subject, and as to the actual state in which this Bill will leave the Church in Ireland. It was stated, that, in the course of the last debate, I said that the purpose of a Church Establishment was not to propagate a
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doctrine, but to instruct a people, and it had been inferred, unjustly, that I disconnected from the objects and business of the Established Church in Ireland the promulgation of its doctrines. What I said, however, agrees fully with the opinions of Paley, and neither Paley nor any other man would say that it was not the duty of a minister to propagate the doctrines of his Church. The object was so to instruct the people as to have them versed in the doctrines of religion and of morality, and to take care that that instruction is given in the best possible manner. The hon. Member for Bradford said, in the early part of the debate that it is the duty of the State to have Protestant ministers, not only over Protestant flocks, but over Roman Catholic flocks, in order to teach them to become Protestants. This, no doubt, is a very laudable desire on the hon. Member's part; but the question is, how did the hon. Member propose to carry it into practical effect? Suppose that some reverend Protestant clergyman, learned and pious, and of sound doctrine, were set over a parish composed of 10,000 Roman Catholics and five Protestants, in what way would this Protestant clergyman contrive effectually to instruct the 10,000 Roman Catholics in his religious doctrines? It might be suggested, that the Roman Catholics should be forced, vi et armis, to go to church, and that tithes should be collected at the edge of the sword; but neither of these proceedings would be effectual in compelling the six millions of Roman Catholics in Ireland to receive the Protestant doctrines contrary to their faith. It is of no use merely to have a Protestant Establishment in Ireland. What I wish, and what I think others ought to wish, is to diffuse through that country a system of instruction, not limited to Protestant instruction, but which should partake of the common doctrines of Christianity— love to one's neighbour, charity to all men —the great and sublime doctrines in which the Roman Catholic was of one mind with us. Such a course of proceeding would be st tend to the promotion of the true religion. Let every man, whether Protestant or Catholic, be well instructed, and thoroughly grounded in the great moral principle acknowledged by both faiths; and he would be a better man and a better subject than the man who was left without instruction, be he of what persuasion he may. It has been said, that in order to effect the object in view, that we are about

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to dispose of the Protestant Church, I have never used, in reference to that Church, the sort of language which has been used in reference to it by an hon. Gentleman who has taken a very different tone in this night's debate. I have never said, as the hon. Member for Belfast once said, that "the Irish Church exhibited a pampered prelacy and a domineering Church Establishment." I have never used language such as this, which I must say is justly offensive to that Church; but, at the same time, I am not prepared, like the hon. Member, suddenly to shift and veer directly round in my opinions upon the subject. At this late hour of the night it is not my intention to carry the House into questions of figures, but in reference to some of the general results, I may describe in what state this plundering and spoliating measure left the Church of Ireland. These same words, plunder and spoliation, though applied by a Bishop in a visitation, a charge to the clergy of Exeter; and re-echoed by the noble Member for Lancashire, are indeed somewhat outrageous phrases, but they do not frighten Ministers from their well-considered purpose—and will not, I think, weigh much with the House when I place before it the state of the Irish Church as it will be when thus plundered and spoliated. There will be, under the Bill, two arch bishops, having between them 17,780 l., or 8,890 l. each. There are to be ten bishops, having between them 49,587 l. The noble Lord, the Member for Lancashire, it will be recollected, when he brought forward his Church Temporalities' Bill, stated that the Bishop of one diocese in England had more benefices under his care than the whole of the bishops of the Church of Ireland. By the present Bill, the bishops will have on an average almost 5,000 l. The Bill also leaves to the dignitaries and prebends 11,042 l., to the minor canons and vicars-choral 14,824 l., to the parochial clergy, in number 1,251, 368,350 l., to the curates, in number 241, 18,075 l., to vestry cess, and repair of churches, 60,000 l., to building new churches 20,000 l., to building glebe houses 10,000 l., ecclesiastical commissioners, &c., 14,000 l., making a total of 618,288 l. for a Church Establishment of 805,000 persons, in a country where the whole of the inhabitants are not less than 8,000,000. The receipt was as follows:—
1258

Net revenues arising from continuing archiepiseopal and Episcopal sees

£67,367

Ditto belonging to dignities And prebends with cure

11,042

Ditto from minor canons and vicars'-choral estates

14,324

Ditto from rent charges, glebe lands, ministers' money, and other funds of small amount

451,864

Amount of the general fund in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commission, arising under the Church Temporalities' Act, the Act to alter and amend said Act, and the present Tithe Bill

139,140

Making a Total of

£683,737

There will remain, then, after providing for the Establishment in this magnificent manner, a surplus of 65,439 l. available for the purpose of general education in Ireland. Was it too much to say, that they would indulge the wishes "of the people of Ireland thus far, or that 6,500,000 of Roman Catholics should not be so total a blank as that the question of their religious instruction should be taken into account? Is it too much, then, to ask, having provided such an Establishment for Ireland, that Parliament will so far indulge the wishes of the people of Ireland, as to show them that the Roman Catholics of that country are not considered a total blank, but are taken into account in considering the important question of national education. If the sum be not a great one in amount, he conceived that he might rely upon its being gratefully accepted as a token and sign that the British Parliament took an interest in the people of Ireland. It will, above all, be favourably contrasted with the views taken by the noble Lord opposite, and others in and out of the House—views breathing insult and defiance to the great portion of the Irish people. The noble Lord has asked me to look at the majority of a former night, and has told me that on this occasion I may find it somewhat lessened. I am ready to leave it most confidently with the House to decide on which side of the question lies justice and good policy. If, however, instead of having a large majority, I should have no majority, or be left in a minority, then I will not hold myself responsible, either as a Minister of the Crown or as a Member of this House, for

1259
attempting a settlement of this question by means which it is dreadful to contemplate—by means which must inevitably be attended with bloodshed—and must array the military force of this country against a great proportion of the people of Ireland. I have no wish to take that responsibility upon myself, and will willingly leave the noble Lord to collect the tithes in that way if he desire to try it. In my opinion, the people of Ireland are not to be kept down by force, unless we mix kindness and justice with our power; and having this opinion, whether in the place in which I now stand, or elsewhere, I shall oppose any votes for the purpose of carrying on an expensive and sanguinary campaign. The right hon. Gentleman who spoke last, has entreated me not to insist upon a mere abstract principle, but I must ask the right hon. Gentleman and others, not for the sake of the people of Ireland, who are groaning under the weight of the Established Church — not for the sake of religion, for that too is suffering —not for the sake of the State, for that is also paralysed by the existing state of things—but for the sake of an abstract principle, not to continue a struggle against the wishes of the people, and to refuse to remedy that grievance which is a just cause of complaint. I leave the whole question to the decision of the House, and, whatever that decision may be, I trust, with respect to the former part of my address, that I have vindicated myself from the imputation that I incur any dishonour in bringing forward this proposition, which my Colleagues and I conceive to be for the benefit of the country and conducive to the pacification of Ireland. If the House concur with me in this opinion, they will support my proposition; but if, on the contrary, they think differently, although they will thereby retract their former opinion, they will, notwithstanding, vote against the clause.
The Committee divided—
Ayes 290; Noes 264.—Majority 26.

List of the AYES.

Acheson, Lord

Attwood, T.

Adam, Sir C.

Bagshaw, J.

Aglionby, H. A.

Baines, E.

Ainsworth, P.

Baldwin, Dr.

Alston, R.

Ball, N.

Andover, Lord

Bannerman, A.

Angerstein, J.

Barclay, D.

Anson, hon. G.

Baring, F. T.

Astley, Sir J.

Barnard, E. G.

1260

Barron, H. W.

Duncombe, T.

Barry, G. S.

Dundas, hon. J.

Beauclerk, Major

Dundas, hon. T.

Bellew, It. M.

Dunlop, J.

Bentinck, Lord W.

Ebrington, Lord

Berkeley, hon. F.

Elphinstone, H.

Berkeley, hon. C.

Etwall, R.

Berkeley, hon. G.

Euston, Earl of

Bewes, J.

Evans, G.

Biddulph, R.

Ewart, W.

Bish, T.

Fazakerley, J. N.

Blackburne, J.

Fellowes, hon. N.

Blake, M. J.

Fergus, J.

Blamire, W.

Ferguson, Sir R.

Blunt, Sir C.

Fergusson, rt. hn. R. C.

Bodkin, J.

Ferguson, R.

Bowes, J.

Fielden, J.

Bowring, Dr.

Finn, W. F.

Brabazon, Sir W.

Fitzgibbon, hon. R.

Brady, D.C.

Fitzroy, Lord C.

Bridgeman, H.

Fitzsimon, C.

Brocklehurst, J.

Fitzsimon, N.

Brodie, W. B.

Fort, J.

Brotherton, J.

French, F.

Browne, R. D.

Gaskell, D.

Buckingham, J. S.

Gillon, W. D.

Buller, E.

Gordon, R.

Buller, C.

Goring, H. D.

Bulwer, E. L.

Grattan, J.

Bulwer, H. L.

Grattan, H.

Burton, H.

Grey, hon. Colonel

Butler, hon. P.

Grey, Sir G,

Buxton, T. F.

Grosvenor, Lord R.

Byng, rt. hon. G

Grote, G.

Callaghan, D.

Guest, J. J.

Campbell, W. F.

Gully, J.

Campbell, Sir J.

Hall, B.

Carter, J. B.

Handley, H.

Cave, R. O.

Hastie, A.

Cavendish, hon. C.

Harland, W. C.

Cavendish, hon. G.

Hawes, B.

Cayley, E. S.

Hawkins, J. H.

Chalmers, P.

Hay, Sir A. L.

Chapman, M. L.

Heathcoat, J.

Chichester, J. B. R.

Hector, C. J.

Childers, J. W.

Heneage, E.

Clay, W.

Heron, Sir R.

Clayton, Sir W.

Hindley, C.

Clements, Viscount

Hobhouse, rt. hon. Sir

Clive, E. B.

J.

Cockerell, Sir C.

Hodges, T. T.

Codrington, Sir E.

Hodges, T. L.

Collier, J.

Holland, E.

Conyngham, Lord A.

Horsman, E.

Cookes, T. H.

Howard, hon. E.

Cowper, hon. W.

Howard, P. H.

Crawford, W.

Howard, R.

Crawley, S.

Howick, Lord

Crompton, S.

Hume, J.

Curties, H. B.

Humphery, J.

Curties, Captain

Hurst, R. H.

Dalmeny, Lord

Hutt, W.

Denison, J. E,

Jephson, C. D. O.

Denison, W.

Jervis, J.

D'Eyncourt, rt. hon.

Johnston, A.

C.T.

Kemp, T. R.

Donkin, Sir R.

King, E. B.

1261

Knox, hon. J. J.

Roche, D.

Labouchere, rt. hn. H.

Rolfe, Sir R. M.

Lambton, H.

Rooper, J. B.

Langton, G

Rundle, J.

Leader, J. T.

Russell, Lord

Lefevre, C. S.

Russell, Lord J.

Lennard, T. B.

Russell, Lord C.

Lister, E. C.

Ruthven, E.

Loch, J.

San ford, E. A.

Long, W.

Scholefield, J.

Lushington, Dr.

Scott, J. W.

Lushington, C.

Scrope, G. P.

Lynch, A. H.

Seale, Colonel

Mackenzie, J. S.

Seymour, Lord

M'Leod, R.

Sharpe, General

M'Namara, Major

Sheil, R. L.

M'Taggart, J.

Simeon, Sir R.

Maher, J.

Smith, B.

Mangles, J.

Smith, J. A.

Marjoribanks, S.

Smith, R. V.

Marshall, W.

Smith, hon. R.

Marsland, H.

Stanley, hon. H. T.

Maule, hon. F.

Steuart, R.

Methuen, P.

Stewart, P. M.

Molesworth, Sir W.

Strickland, Sir G.

Morpeth, Lord

Strutt, E.

Morrison, S.

Stuart, Lord D.

Mostyn, hon. E.

Stuart, Lord J.

Mullins, F. W.

Stuart, W. V.

Murray, J. A.

Talbot, C. R. M.

Musgrave, Sir R. A.

Talbot, J. H.

Nagle, Sir R.

Talfourd, Sergeant

O'Brien, W. S.

Tancred, H. W.

O'Connell, M. J.

Thompson, Colonel

O'Connell, D.

Thomson, rt. hn. C. P.

O'Connell, M.

Thornely, T.

O'Connell, J.

Tooke, W.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Tracy, C. H.

Oliphant, L.

Trelawney, Sir S.

O'Loghlen, M.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Ord, W.

Tulk, C. A.

Oswald, J.

Tynte, C. J. K.

Paget, F.

Verney, Sir H.

Palmer, General

Villiers, C. P.

Palmerston, Lord

Vivian, Major

Parker, J.

Vivian, J. H.

Parrott, J.

Wakley, T.

Pattison, J.

Walker, C. A.

Pease, J.

Walker, R.

Pelham, hon. C. A.

Wallace, R.

Pendarves, E. W. W.

Warburton, H.

Philips, G. R.

Ward, H. G.

Philips, M.

Wason, R.

Ponsonby, hon. W.

Westenra, hon. H. R.

Ponsonby, hon. J,

Westenra, hon. Col.

Potter, R.

Whalley, Sir S.

Poulter, J. S.

Wigney, I. N.

Power, J.

Wilbraham, G.

Price, Sir R.

Wilde, Sergeant

Pryse, P.

Wilkins, W.

Pusey, P.

Wilks, J.

Ramsbottom, J.

Williams W.

Rice, rt. hon. T. S

Williams, Sir J.

Rippon, C.

Williams, W. A.

Robarts, A. W.

Williamson, Sir H.

Robinson, G. R.

Wilson, H.

Roche, W.

Winnington, Capt.

1262

Wood, M.

Wyse, T.

Wood, C.

Young, G. F.

Woulfe, Sergeant

TELLER.

Wrightson, W. B.

Stanley, E. J.

Wrottesley, Sir J.

List of the NOES.

Agnew, Sir A.

Dotten, A. R.

Alsager, Captain

Dowdeswell, W.

Arbuthnot, hon. Gen.

Duffield, T.

Archdall, M.

Dugdale, W S

Ashley, Lord

Dunbar, G.

Ashley, hon. H.

Duncombe, hon. A.

Attwood, M.

East, J. B.

Bagot, horn W.

Eastnor, Viscount

Bailey, J.

Eaton, R. J.

Baillie, Colonel

Egerton, Lord F.

Balfour. T.

Egerton, Sir P.

Barclay, C.

Egerton, W. T.

Baring, T.

Elley, Sir J.

Baring, H.

Elwes, J. P.

Baring, hon. W. B.

Entwistle, J.

Baring, hon. F.

Estcourt, T. G. B.

Bateson, Sir R

Estcourt, T. S. B.

Beckett, rt. hn. Sir J.

Fancourt, Major

Pell, M.

Ferguson, Captain

Benett, J.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

Bentinck, Lord G.

Feilden, W.

Beresford, Sir J. P.

Finch, G.

Bethell, R.

Fleetwood, P. H.

Blackburne, J. I.

Fleming, J.

Blackstone, W. S.

Follett, Sir W.

Boldero, Captain

Forbes, W.

Boiling, W.

Forrester, hon. C.

Bonham, F. R.

Forster, C.

Borthwick, P.

Fremantle, Sir T.

Bradshaw, J.

Freshfield, J. W.

Bramston, T. W.

Gaskell, J. M.

Brownrigg, J. S.

Geary, Sir W.

Bruce, Lord E.

Gladstone, T.

Brudenell, Lord

Gladstone, W. E.

Bruen, Colonel

Glynne, Sir S.

Braen, F.

Goodricke, Sir F.

Buller, Sir J.

Gordon, hon. W.

Burrell, Sir C.

Gore, W. O.

Calcraft, J. H.

Goulburn, rt. hon. H.

Campbell, Sir H. P.

Goulburn, Sergeant

Canning, rt. hn. Sir S.

Graham, right hon. Sir

Cartwright, W. R.

J.

Castlereagh, Viscount

Greene, T.

Chandos, Marquess of

Gresley, Sir R.

Chaplin, Lieut.-Col.

Grimston, Viscount

Chapman, A.

Grimston, hon. E.

Chichester, A.

Hale, R. B.

Chisholm, A.

Halford, H.

Clive, Viscount

Halse, J.

Clive, hon. B.

Hamilton, Lord C.

Codrington, C. W.

Hamilton, G. A.

Cole, Lord

Hanmer, Sir J.

Cole, hon. A.

Harcourt, G. V.

Compton, H. C.

Hardinge, rt. hn. Sir

Coote, Sir C.

H.

Copeland, W. T.

Hardy, J.

Corbett, T. G.

Hawkes, T.

Corry, rt. hon. H.

Hay, Sir J.

Dalbiac, Sir C.

Hayes, Sir E.

Darlington, Earl of

Henniker, Lord

Dick, Q.

Herbert, hon. S,

1263

Herries, rt. hon. J. C.

Peel, it. hon. Sir R.

Hill, Lord A.

Peel, Colonel

Hill, Sir R.

Pemberton, Thomas

Hogg, J. W.

Penruddocke, J. H.

Hope, hon. J.

Perceval, Colonel

Hope, H. T.

Pigot, R.

Hotham, Lord

Plumptre, J. P.

Houldsworth, T

Plunket, hon. R. E.

Hoy, J. B.

Polhill, Captain

Hughes, H.

Pollen, Sir J. W.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Pollington, Lord

Irton, S.

Pollock, Sir F.

Jackson, Sergeant

Powell, Colonel

Jermyn, Earl

Poyntz, W. S.

Johnstone, Sir J.

Praed, W. M.

Johnstone, J. J.H.

Praed, J.B.

Jones, Captain

Price, S. G.

Jones, W.

Price, R.

Kearsley, J. H.

Pringle, A.

Kerr, D.

Rae, rt. hon. Sir W.

Kerrison, Sir E.

Reid, Sir J. R.

Kirk, P.

Richards, J.

Knight, H. G.

Richards, R.

Knatchbull, right. hon.

Rickford, W.

Sir E.

Ross, C.

Knightley, Sir C.

Rushbrooke, Colonel

Law, hon. C. E.

Russell, C.

Lawson, A.

Ryle, J.

Lefroy, rt. hon. T.

Sanderson, R.

Lefroy, A.

Sandon, Lord

Lemon, Sir C.

Scarlett, hon. R.

Lennox, Lord G.

Scott, Lord J.

Lennox, Lord A.

Scott, Sir E. D.

Lewis, W.

Scourfield, W. H.

Lewis, D.

Shaw, rt, hon. F.

Lincoln, Earl of

Sheppard, T.

Longfield, R.

Shirley, J.

Lowther, Lord

Sibthorp, Colonel

Lowther, hon. H.

Smith, A.

Lowther, J. H.

Smith, T. A.

Lushington, hon. S.R.

Smyth, Sir H.

Lygon, hon. Colonel

Somerset, Lord E.

Mackinnon, W. A.

Somerset, Lord G.

Maclean, D.

Spry, Sir S. T.

Mahon, Lord

Stanley, Lord

Manners, Lord C. S.

Stanley, E.

Marsland, T.

Stewart, Sir M. S.

Martin, J.

Stormont, Lord

Mathew, Captain

Sturt, H.C.

Meynell, Captain

Tennent, J. E.

Miles, P. J.

Thomas, Lieut.-Col.

Millar, W. H.

Thompson, W.

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Tollemache, hon. A.

Morgan, C. M.

Townsend, Lord J.

Neeld, Joseph

Trench, Sir F.

Neeld, John

Trevor, hon. G. R.

Nicholl, Dr.

Trevor, hon. A.

Norreys, Lord

Twiss, H.

North, F.

Tyrrell, Sir J. T.

Owen, Sir J.

Vere, Sir C. B.

Owen, H. O.

Vesey, hon. T.

Packe, C. W.

Vivian, J. E.

Palmer, R.

Vyvyan, Sir R.

Palmer, G.

Wall, C. B.

Parker, M. E.

Walpole, Lord

Parry, Sir L. P. J.

Walter, J.

Patten, J. W.

Welby, G. E.

1264

Weyland, Major

Wood, Colonel

Whitmore, T. C.

Wortley, hon. J. S.

Wilbraham, hon. B.

Wyndham, W.

Williams, R.

Yorke, hon. E.

Williams, T. P.

Young, Sir W.

Wilmot, Sir J. E.

TELLER.

Wodehouse, E.

Clerk, Sir G.

Paired off.

FOR.

AGAINST.

Belfast, Earl

Alford, Lord

Burdon, W.

Barneby, J.

Churchill, Lord C.

Bruce, C, L. C,

Colborne, N. W. R.

Conolly, Colonel

Divett, E.

Cooper, E. J.

Dobbin, L.

Crewe, Sir G,

Folkes, Sir W.

Cripps, J.

Gisborne, T.

Davenport, J.

Hallyburton, hn. D.G.

Duncombe, hon. W.

Hoskins, K.

Grant, hon. Colonel

Kerry, Earl of

Greville, hon. Sir C.

Lee, J. L.

Lees, J. F.

Martin, T.

Lopes, Sir R,

O'Brien, C,

Lucas, E.

O'Connell, M.

Mandeville, Lord

O'Connor, Don

Maunsell, T. P.

Parnell, rt. hn. Sir H.

Maxwell, H.

Pechell, Captain

Maxwell, J.

Phillipps, C. M.

O'Neill, hon. Gen.

Pryme, G,

Ossulston, Lord

Spiers, A,

Peel, rt. hn. W.

Turner, W.

Peel, E.

Tynte, Colonel

Sinclair, Sir G.

Wemyss, Captain

West, J. B.

White, S.

Wynn, Sir W.

Winnington, Sir T.

Wynn, rt. hon. C. W.

The clause was accordingly agreed to.
The House resumed, and the Chairman reported progress and obtained leave to sit again.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of, and the House adjourned.