TITHES (IRELAND)—ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 15 May 1838 vol 42 cc1263-353

Mr. Litton

said, on the Order of the Day being read for resuming the adjourned debate, on the motion for the Speaker to leave the chair to go into a Committee on the Tithes (Ireland) Act, it was a great satisfaction to him to know that his opinion coincided with the great mass of the Protestant population of Ireland, and that there were very few indeed of the members of the Established Church who did not agree in thinking, that great injury and mischief to that Establishment, and vast injustice to individuals would result from these resolutions. With respect, moreover, to the clergy themselves (and he thought that they ought to be considered in a matter like this), as far as he had been able to inquire, there was not one dissentient voice from the opposition they were disposed to give to the details and principles of this measure. Let it not be said, that a boon was conferred by it on the clergy, but let it be distinctly understood, that they considered it an infraction of private rights, and that any bill founded on those resolutions would strike at the root of all private property and of the Established Church in Ireland. It was important that English Members on both sides of the House should know exactly what were the general receipts of the Church of Ireland on account of tithes, in consequence of the working of the various Acts of Parliament passed within the last few years. By the operation of Lord Stanley's Act two modes were suggested by which the payment of tithe might be taken from occupiers. The first was by means of what were called undertaking landlords—that was to say, landlords who took upon themselves the payment of tithe; and he could inform the House, that in the province of Ulster, at least six sevenths of the tithe were paid by undertaking landlords. Therefore in that part of Ireland the clergy received their income without the slightest difficulty, and without any loss; and it could not be said, that it would be conferring a bonus on that clergy if an additional fifteen per cent should at once be deducted from their income, and nothing given them in return. It was enacted by other provisions of Lord Stanley's Act, that in every case of a tenancy from year to year subsequent to August, 1832, and in every case of a lease falling in, the landlord should after that period be charged with the payment of tithes without deduction, and that the leaseholder and tenant should be no longer liable. What had been the result of the operation of those provisions? In the southern and western parts of Ireland, where the greatest discontent used to exist at the payment of tithes when it was in the hands of the occupier, the tithe to the extent of twenty or thirty per cent. had now become payable by the landlord. Moreover, in consequence of the proceedings taken in the courts of Chancery and Exchequer, and the other courts of law, even the occupier who formerly resisted the collection of tithe now paid it without hesitation or opposition. In applying for the aid of the law, it had been the care of the clergyman not to punish the occupier for a fault into which he had been seduced; but they fixed on the landlord and on the anti-tithe conspirator; and in every case where they had taken proceedings they had succeeded. The result was, that even occupiers did at the present moment pay tithes to a great extent in Ireland. Taking all these circumstances into consideration, he would venture to pronounce, that it would appear by returns he intended to move for, that the clergy of Ireland did one an average receive fifty per cent. of their tithe without deduction, without litigation, and without interruption; and a gross injustice would be committed on that body if the House should adopt a plan which, giving them no greater security for their income than they at present enjoyed with respect to the receipt of fifty per cent. of their tithe, should yet make a deduction of no less than three-fifths from their receipts. He therefore entirely impugned the propriety of the first resolution, which went to effect an unexampled reduction of the income of the clergy, uncalled for by the present state of the law, or the necessities of the clergy. The deduction that was proposed to be made amounted in reality to eighty per cent.; for it included the 50l. which the clergy did not yet receive, and also three-fifths of the other 50l. which they did receive; and if they refused to accede to this enormous reduction of their revenue, the enemies of the Church would of course stigmatise them as a grasping and griping class of men. With respect to the effect of the resolutions on the successors of the existing clergymen, he totally dissented from the representation made last night by the noble Lord opposite, who, whilst he avoided any distinct enunciation of an intention to appropriate to secular purposes any portion of the income of the present clergy, yet, with respect to their successors, did in substance propose by his resolutions to effect such an appropriation to the amount of four-fifths of the income of the Church every year. What, he asked, would be produced to the clergy if the noble Lord's second resolution were passed and acted upon? The successors of the existing clergy would, if the redemption money were vested in the three and a-half per cents., obtain for every 100l. somewhere about 56l. a-year, and if the money were vested in land, even then it would not produce more than four per cent. Consequently, there was something which the clergy would lose, and which would be pocketed by the State and applied to secular purposes. By the sixth resolution it was provided, that any surplus which might exist after certain payments were provided for, should form part of the consolidated fund, and be applied to local purposes, by which he understood that secular purposes were meant; and he was confirmed in that impression by a passage in the letter written by Mr. O'Connell to the people of Ireland, in which the learned Member stated, that "the part of the plan which most induced him to agree to it was, that the tithe rent-charges, when purchased by the Government, were to be appropriated to local purposes, that was to say, to county charges and to education. It was right that those resolutions, which stood on the journals of the House, and which fettered their deliberations should be expunged. It was necessary for everybody who wished to come to the discussion of any measure for the settlement of the tithe questions to have the resolutions of 1835 erased. It would be wrong to enter at length into the question of a surplus arising out of the tithe scheme of the Government, but the appropriation clause of 1835 required to be rescinded before Parliament could enter upon any other measure for the final settlement of tithes which did not contain the appropriation principle. It was well known, that there was a large minority of that House, a large majority in the House of Lords, and a vast body of the people out of doors who were conscientiously opposed to the principle of appropriation, and who would never sanction any tithe measure which contained that principle, or look without doubt on any scheme for the settlement of tithes, while the resolutions of 1835 hung suspended over them by remaining on the journals of the House. He, therefore, charged the Government with wishing to throw amongst them an apple of discord by their resistance to the motion of the hon. Baronet, the Member for Devonshire, and with wishing to keep up the agitation which existed throughout the country on the subject of the Church. Why should those resolutions be preserved, and for what purpose was it, that the Government persisted in retaining them? While they were allowed to stand on the journals of the House the Government must be perfectly aware that they could never pass any tithe measure; and it was therefore the Government, and not the Members of the Opposition, who were to blame for retarding the settlement of this important question. Remove those resolutions from the journals, and the fears of the clergy and of the friends of the Church would be diminished, and the House of Commons would then be in a condition to enter calmly and without prejudice on the consideration of any measure which the Government might bring forward for the settlement of the question of tithes. Those revenues, if fairly applied, were not too great for the wants of the establishment, and whatever surplus might be created by the tithe scheme of the Government, would be required to provide an adequate income for the poorer clergy, instead of being devoted to secular purposes. On this point, he would beg to direct the attention of the House, but more particularly of the Government, to the petitions which had been presented from the clergy of Ireland. One of these—a petition from the clergy of the diocese of Killaloe—stated, that notwithstanding the efforts which had been made to create a surplus out of the revenues of the Church, it was a well known fact that those revenues were not more than sufficient to provide a decent maintenance for the clergymen of the Church of Ireland, and that a deduction of thirty per cent. from their incomes would be productive of ruin to themselves and families. He could mention some instances of the truth of that statement which had come under his own observation. He was acquainted with a vicar whose gross income was 139l. a year, and who had a large family to support out of that amount. His real income, however, was not so much, for after making such deductions as he was obliged to make, his living was not worth more than 103l. Now, if they made the proposed reductions from that sum, they would leave the income totally inadequate to the wants of himself and family. Formerly a necessity might have existed for such a scheme as was now proposed. When the opposition to the payment of tithes was general, and when that opposition produced anarchy and confusion and open resistance to the law, a measure like the one proposed by the Government might have been deemed necessary, but since the passing of the bill of the noble Lord near him (Lord Stanley) the payments to the clergy had been regularly and tranquilly made, and now the clergy told them that all they wanted from Parliament was to be let alone, and that they would not adopt measures which could only tend to the ruin of themselves and families. When, therefore, no necessity existed for such an interference with vested rights, was it wise or politic for the Government to bring forward a scheme which tended to weaken the Established Church and to plunge the clergy of Ireland into ruin? No war called for such a measure; the revenues of the country surely did not require that they should rob the clergy of their incomes; and was it fair that they should be called on by the Government to give their assent to a measure so injurious to the Church as the one the Ministers had proposed, solely for the purpose, for there could be no other reason, of gratifying a portion of the House—he alluded to those Irish Members who were supporters of the Administration? For such a reason as that was Parliament to break through the vested rights of the Church and inflict on the clergy an injury which ought not to be tolerated in any free and civilized state? He trusted Parliament would not consent to any such wrong. Such a measure would be attended with most injurious effects on the incomes of the clergy of Ireland. If those commutations were opened, it would be impossible, in many cases, for the clergy to substantiate their titles to the tithes which had been commuted, the documents having been destroyed, as they had trusted to the faith of an Act of Parliament. That part of the resolutions, therefore, which related to the opening the commutations which had been effected under the act of which he had alluded, would tend to throw Ireland into a state of confusion, and would, if carried into effect, create the greatest difficulties as regarded the title to tithes. If the Government themselves had framed those resolutions, which he doubted, and if they had inquired into the circumstances under which the commutations of tithes in Ireland had been effected, he was sure they never would have proposed to open them at present. He, therefore, objected to all the principle and all the details of the Government scheme for the settlement of the tithe question. It encroached more than any measure he had ever seen on the vested rights of the Church, while it tended to destroy the fixed title of the clergy to any property, to any income whatsoever. What right had Parliament to substitute a money security for a fee simple title—a title which was as good as that of any Gentleman present to his estate? The effect of the Government measure was to disconnect the title of the clergy to their incomes with the land, and to place any claim which they might afterwards be allowed to retain on the civil list. That such would be the effect of the measure proposed was as clear as daylight. The rent-charge was to be paid into the consolidated fund, and the eighth resolution directed the incomes of the clergy to be paid from that fund. But had they any right to destroy a title which had existed for centuries, which was as good as that of any title to any estate, which was conferred on the clergy by charters, and on the faith of which family settlements had been made—had they any right, he would ask, to destroy that title, to change it for a mere claim upon the civil list? The noble Lord opposite had said, that the title of the clergy to their incomes would be as good as that of her Majesty to her's. That might be so; but had they not heard the civil list combated, had they not seen the civil list reduced, and were the incomes of the clergy then to be subjected yearly to the examination of Parliament, and to the objections of those hon. Members who hereafter might think seventy per cent. a little too much for a grasping clergy, as they would be termed! If any war should arise, or should any extraordinary demand be made on the national revenues, where was to be the guarantee that some hon. Member might not deem seventy per cent. a little too much for the clergy, and propose a still further reduction in order to meet the exigencies of the State? The revenues of the Church would be suggested to an annual revision, and in such a state of things there could be no security, and therefore it was, that the clergy of Ireland, to a man, objected to the resolutions of the noble Lord. They justly said, that these resolutions struck at the titles of the Church to her possessions, and tended to make churchmen pensioners of the State. To show, that the object of the framers was to strike down the title of the clergy to their incomes, and to make them dependent on the civil list, the House need only look at what was to be done with lay impropriators, who were to be allowed to do with their property as they pleased. Why was the distinction made? Because the object was, to destroy the semblance of a Church Establishment, and the independence of the clergy. Now he would ask whether, if ever a measure were brought forward founded on the resolutions which had been proposed, which he trusted would not be the case, the titles of the lay impropriators were to be preserved, and if they were, why was the very name of an Establishment to be cut up, and the titles and property of the Church utterly destroyed? The noble Lord opposite had admitted, that if they weakened the Church of Ireland, the effect would be to weaken the Church of England at the same time, and he allowed that the terms of the union were, that the Church of England and the Church of Ireland should be the same; and to what the noble Lord had said he (Mr. Litton) would add, that they could not destroy the Church of Ireland without destroying the Church of England. He did, therefore, earnestly entreat the English Members of that House who were favourable to a Church Establishment, to pause before they consented to the resolutions which had been proposed, and to reflect on the admissions of the noble Lord opposite, that whatever tended to weaken the Church of Ireland tended also to weaken the Church of England. The measure which had been proposed tended to weaken the Church of Ireland, and could those who were Members of the Church of England sanction that measure after what had been stated and allowed by the noble Lord? He would ask the House, especially the English Members, and indeed the Irish Members of all sides of politics, who were nevertheless attached to the Church, or professed to be so, under whose auspices were those resolutions introduced? Who declared their approval of them? Who cheered the Ministers on? Who stated them to be the only remedy for Ireland's woes? Without meaning any personal offence, he would reply, it was the head of the anti-tithe party in Ireland—the man who had declared, that the Protestant Church was the bane of Ireland. Was there not ground then for looking on those resolutions with great suspicion? Should not they who looked on the Church as a pillar of the State, and as a necessary and valuable establishment for the protection of morals and the advancement of education and religion amongst the people, consider well what must be the effect of such resolutions, both to the English as well as to the Irish Church, accompanied by such declaration, and fostered by such patronage? The noble Lord, in his speech last night, called the ministers of the Church of Ireland, ministers of strife, and said they would give only fifteen per cent for peace, so little did they value it, and made many other remarks of a similar character reflecting on the Irish Protestant clergy. He must say, that either those who used such language used it for a purpose in that House, or they must be wholly ignorant of the character of the Protestant clergymen in Ireland. Having lived nearly all his life in that country, and knowing what the character of those much maligned men was, he could not suffer such a stigma to be cast upon them without protesting against it as undeserved and unjustifiable. Were not the Irish Protestant clergy the friends of the poor? Did they not visit the sick and the dying, and administer to their necessities by affording both physical and spiritual comforts? When they were in the receipt of their incomes, was not their money scattered in blessings on the people in the midst of whom they were placed? and did they not give away to the poor far more than they received in tithes? He had no hesitation in saying, that the Irish Protestant clergy were amongst the best benefactors the people had ever known. The noble Lord (Lord Morpeth), at the close of his speech last night, vaunted of the majority which he expected, and spoke with an air of triumph on the subject. The noble Lord said, that he was glad to meet us on the Church question, and that he would beat us, and show us how puny we are. It was possible there might be a puny majority against the motion of his hon. Friend. He was very certain that a portion of the English Members have been won over to the abettors of the destruction of the church-rates, and the Irish members also have been won over to support ministers by half-promises, but made openly and avowedly in these resolutions, to destroy the establishment. Between the two, it might be very likely that they would have a puny majority in their favour, but he thought Ministers would have to answer to the Protestant gentlemen of England, for carrying a measure respecting the Church Establishment in Ireland upon a majority made up of such materials. He called on the Protestant gentlemen of England to look at the lists of the division that was to take place. Let them observe in the majority how many declared enemies of the Church there were; and if they found that majority to be made up of those who had openly professed their animosity to the Church, and whom Ministers had thought fit to call to their aid, let them consider how far Ministers would deserve the confidence of this Protestant country, governed under a Protestant constitution, and how the Protestant Ministers of a Protestant Queen owing this majority mainly, and perhaps altogether, to a body of men, openly and avowedly opposed to a Protestant Church, would answer to the country for thus swamping Protestant principle and feeling by depending on such a majority.

Mr. Lascelles

was one of those, who at the conclusion of the last Session of Parliament, had looked forward with satisfaction to the prospect of some amicable arrangement of this question. He should indeed be sorry that any vote which he was about to give in this preliminary stage, should be supposed to preclude the most full and dispassionate consideration of the entire subject. He had a great disinclination that party battles should be fought on such questions, and it was for this reason, that he was the more ready to support the amendment, and so far to remove an obstacle to the amicable settlement of this question. No one could deny the difficulties that surrounded this question. In voting for the amendment, he did not see on what grounds it could be said, that he was thereby voting for a re-enactment of the penal code, or for any harsh measures towards Ireland. The question was, whether or no the appropriation principle should be maintained. To that principle he was decidedly opposed, and if he had been in the last Parliament, he should have voted against it. He thought it at the time unadvisable and objectionable, and he was of the same opinion still. It was his intention now to vote for the rescinding of that resolution, and he would give that vote in the hope of doing away with the difficulties that stood in the way of an amicable arrangement of the question, Whether or not it were possible for the Government to accede to the rescinding of that resolution was no concern of his, and perhaps it was too much to expect that they would do so. Those who, in the first instance, stated that principle to be necessary for the settlement of this question, now themselves avowed that they did not think it to be necessary in any arrangement for the settlement of this question. He thought it highly advisable, that this resolution should be rescinded, and would therefore support the amendment proposed by the hon. Baronet.

Mr. Redington

was strongly opposed to the Amendment proposed by the hon. Baronet. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Litton) had boasted of speaking the sentiments of 600,000 Protestants of Ireland; he not only spoke, but entertertained the opinions and sentiments of 6,000,000 of the people of Ireland. Great stress had been laid upon the petition from the clergy of Armagh against the Ministerial plan for settling the tithe question, and it had been declared that the clergy of the Established Church in Ireland were unanimous in their opposition to that measure. But, so far from this being the fact, he had seen a letter written by the Dean of Cloyne, in which he expressly stated not only that he was himself strongly against the sentiments set forth in the petition from the clergy of Armagh, but that many of the clergy in his diocese were equally opposed to that petition, and that it was the intention of those individuals to get up and present a counter petition to the House upon the question. What, indeed, was the language held by those ministers of the Gospel who displayed such hostility to the measure proposed by her Majesty's Government? They in effect declared this:—fifty per cent. we are now able to obtain; to another fifty we are entitled, and we would rather have the fifty per cent. we now get with strife, than the seventy per cent. offered to us with peace." As an Irish land lord, he could not but express his very great disappointment at the course which this debate had taken. He had fondly entertained the hope that a better state of things was coming on, and that the peace and tranquillity of Ireland, without which it never could be prosperous, would have been the object of the Legislature, without any reference whatever to the spirit of party. Unfortunately, however, for that country, it was again to be made the victim of Tory enmity and strife. An hon. Baronet, indeed, who took part in the debate last night, disclaimed being a Tory, and declared he hated the very name of Tory, and that neither he nor his party were Tories. True, they were not, for they were chiefly made up of ci-devant Radicals, ci-devant Whigs, and ci-devant anti-Catholic Orangemen, and assumed to themselves the name of Conservatives. It had been urged as one reason for rescinding the resolutions of 1835, that the appropriation principle had in effect been abandoned by her Majesty's Government, and it was therefore inconsistent for them to retain that resolution on the journals of the House. Now, he remembered, that when the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) was as the head of the Government, certain resolutions were proposed by the then Secretary for Ireland (Sir H. Hardinge), and adopted by the House, one of which declared a determination on the part of the Government to do justice to Ireland. If the object of the hon. Baronet who had brought forward the Amendment should succeed, and if the measure introduced by her Majesty's Government was to be met in this hostile manner, he hoped, for the sake of consistency, that the right hon. Baronet would immediately propose to rescind that resolution also, and send the Irish Members back to Ireland, that they might tell their constituents that this Parliament had rescinded the resolution which pledged the Government and Legislature to do them justice. Hon. Gentlemen should not wholly disregard the lessons to be learned from history. There was a time when the Catholic Church in this country held as high a position as the Protestant Church held at the present day, till a discontented Monarch ventured to alter its position, and then when the hour of adversity came, those who had been most cherished as her friends, became the foremost to share and partake of her spoils. Such a case might again occur. If they created discontent in the minds of the people, it behoved them to remember that a united people were as strong as a despot who combined all power in his own person, and the Church of England might perish as the Catholic Church, and its name be almost forgotten; and then, possibly, those who now in their simplicity considered themselves the friends of the Church, would bootlessly regret that they had ac- quired experience from the past too late. He regretted the absence of the hon. Baronet, the Member for the University of Oxford, because he, as a Member of Christ Church in that University, could inform the House that that College was founded by Cardinal Wolsey, by the confiscations of the property belonging to two monasteries in Oxford; and the hon. Baronet could also say whether, in his opinion, that was or was not an appropriation of property which had been diverted from religious uses to educational purposes. He knew, and the country knew, full well, the reasons why the principle of appropriation had been postponed for the present; and notwithstanding that postponement, he would support the noble Lord's resolutions, and strenuously oppose the rescinding of the recorded principle.

Mr. Townley

was understood to say, that it was apparent that in this discussion there was something savouring strongly of party feeling—that the amendment had been moved for the purpose of founding an attack, and affixing a stigma upon the present Government, and displacing them from the situation which they now held. On the question of the appropriation clause, he felt himself bound to separate himself from those with whose views it was his happiness generally to concur, and to vote against that proposition; but, on the present occasion, as the resolutions of the noble Lord (the Secretary for the Home Department) did not embrace the principle of appropriation, he should vote for going into their consideration. That being the case, he felt satisfied, that he should not act inconsistently with his former vote in joining, on this occasion, those in whom he placed confidence. Looking also to the prospect of no greater peace for Ireland than that which had been secured by those in whose hands the Government of that country was now placed, he, in the exercise of the discretion vested in him, felt that by voting in favour of the resolutions of the noble Lord, he should best discharge his duty to his constituents, and to the country at large.

Mr. Young

said, that no man could be more anxious than he was, to see the House arrive at a final and satisfactory settlement of that much-agitated question. But the resolution of 1835 fettered their movements. While it remained, there was no security for the Church. An instal- ment, to use the common parlance of the hon. Member for Dublin, might be taken in shape of the resolutions of 1838, by the Liberal party; but, when opportunity served, they would infallibly recur to those of 1835, which were, in fact, the first step towards the voluntary principle—to that point, most of the arguments on the other side tended. Allusion had been made to the clergy of Ireland, as overpaid and luxurious; but it might be gathered from the speech of the noble Lord, the Secretary of State, that, taking the extent of duty, the number and wealth of the Protestants, he did not consider the Church too highly remunerated. This was the fact; for, by accurate reports, it appeared, that there were 1,545 parishes in Ireland, in which there were more than fifty Protestants. If the whole amount of tithe remaining, after the various deductions made in the last few years were apportioned to those parishes—leaving unprovided all curates, all repairs of the fabric of the Church, and all the other parishes in which there are less than fifty Protestants, the stipend for each parish would be 180l. per annum. This was what was called an overpaid and luxurious establishment. The accounts of the Commissioners who managed the revenues of the ten sees suppressed, when Church-cess was abolished, showed their affairs so deeply in debt, that if they were those of an individual, they might fairly be considered irretrievable. They were not in a situation to aid the Church, 534 benefices were without glebe-houses; 210 benefices, in which there were Protestant congregations, were even without churches; while forty-seven applications for glebe-houses, inherited from the old commission, and forty-three new ones, making a total of ninety, remained unattended to. He was happy to say, the returns also showed that the Protestant population had increased in 1,200 parishes. The hon. Member for Drogheda had laid much stress on the feeling of the Roman Catholics in favour of the principle of appropriation; of course they supported it, because it forwarded the views, and might increase the revenues of their own Church; just as the advocate of the voluntary principle gave it his vote, because he justly considered it a step towards his end of dissevering the Church from the State, and excluding religious instruction altogether from the national education. But, on these very grounds, the great body of Protestants objected to it, and imputed wilful inconsistency, or gross self-delusion, to those who, like the Ministers, lavished empty professions of support on the Church, while their acts directly tended to increase, not the malice, for that was impossible, but the power and the number of her enemies. They thought not of the advantage or permanent interests of the Church—facts such as he had glanced at, formed no element in their view of the case. It seemed astonishing how any Minister, looking to such facts, could persist in seriously contemplating the idea of a surplus; but even if a surplus existed, or could be produced, in the revenues of part of the Protestant Church in England or Ireland, how could alienation to secular purposes be thought of, while there remained in large towns so vast and disgraceful a deficiency of religious instruction? In the metropolis, it was said, a hundred new churches would scarcely suffice to afford the means of attending public worship to the population. But look to Glasgow. Had she been adequately provided in this respect? Had there been there, instead of a scanty and overtasked few, many ministers, moving amongst all classes, and preaching peace and goodwill, would the House have heard so much odious recrimination of avarice and oppression against the rich—of combination founded on intimidation and outrage against the poor? Why, the accounts of children broken in health, and debarred from all instruction, by early and incessant labour, of ingenious devices, by which, for some additional profit, men were made mere machines, driven into depraved habits, and their physical and mental energies exhausted before they reached, certainly before they passed, what ought to be the period of vigorous manhood—evinced but little charity in the employers—while the employed—their state was proved by the report of the trial of the cotton-spinners, which the Lord-Advocate had just put into his (Mr. Young's) hands, as a member of the combination committee, were filled with anger against their masters. At a meeting of delegates, not ignorant ill-informed men, but persons of apt, acute intellects, ready letter-writers, fluent speakers, the question of putting all the master cotton-spinners in the town to death, was debated for several hours. Ultimately, the question passed in the negative, not because it would have been an atrocious violation of all laws, human and divine, but because it was not expedient. The middle course of a single assassination was resorted to, and would have been accomplished but for the vigilance and vigour of the sheriff, Mr. Alison. Well might that gentleman give it as the result of his long experience and close observation, that there exists in the manufacturing districts an amount of evil which if not arrested by the returning good sense of the workmen, or the efforts of the Legislature, would paralyze the industry and destroy the social condition of the country. He did not mean to undervalue the effects of general education, as he believed, that it frequently diminished the ferocity of human nature, but he would say, that if any surplus could by any exercise of ingenuity be raised out of the revenues of the Church of Ireland, let it be devoted to the religious instruction of the population, under the auspices and according to the doctrines of the Established Church. He was a good deal surprised last night to hear the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, assert, that the gross amount of the income of the Protestant Church of Ireland was disproportioned to the population. In making that assertion, the noble Lord seemed to have forgotten that his noble Colleague, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, had in the earlier part of the evening stated, in effect, that although the position of the Irish clergy with regard to the Catholics was rather anomalous, yet if the duties which they had to perform and the wealth of the Protestants were taken into consideration, the revenue of the establishment was by no means out of proportion to the population. Another argument which had been employed last night was, that the attempt to rescind the resolutions of 1835 argued a wish and a tendency to return to the harshness with which the Roman Catholics of Ireland were formerly treated. He disclaimed for himself, and for all those with whom he was acquained, any such intention. He did not think such a course practicable, and he did not believe, that any statesman, or any person of common powers of observation, would think of returning to the policy pursued towards the Roman Catholics in the last century. He wished to live in peace with his Roman Catholic fellow countrymen, and he thought that if the policy laid down in the statement of the right hon. Mem- ber for Tamworth in the latter part of the year 1834 had been fully and fairly carried out, it would have pacified the alarm of the Protestant part of the community, while it would have enlisted on its side the great mass of the property and respectability of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. He preferred the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon to the resolutions of Ministers, merely as a preliminary. They must get rid of the appropriation resolution before they could come to a consideration of the present resolutions. He was determined, and so were his constituents, to accept of no settlement of the tithe question in which the principle of appropriation was involved.

Mr. Benett

felt himself placed in a peculiar position on this occasion, as at the time when the appropriation clause was brought forward he had found himself compelled to vote against those persons with whom he had acted politically with the greatest zeal for a long series of years. He had done so from a sense of duty to his country, because he felt, that it would be unjust to appropriate any part of the revenues of the Church to other than ecclesiastical purposes. He confessed, that he had entered on this subject not only with great pain, but with great assiduity, and he had taken the trouble to make himself master of what had passed on Irish subjects for some years past, in order to ascertain what was the proper course for him to pursue, and he believed, that hon. Gentlemen would give him credit for fairness and independence of opinion. Though he still retained, then, the opinions which he formerly held, and though he would not, as far as his opposition could avail, on any account allow an appropriation of what had hitherto been appropriated to the Church for any other than ecclesiastical purposes, yet he could not help thinking that it was his duty to oppose the motion of the hon. Baronet. It was one thing to oppose a resolution, and another to rescind it. The resolution which it was now attempted to rescind, was proposed, he really believed, for party purposes. But he asked himself what was the object of the present Amendment? He had always been opposed to party feeling, and he had never at any time joined any combination for party purposes. He thought that his hon. Friend the Member for North Devon had been induced to make this motion, not from a desire to rescind the obnoxious resolutions, but to make it a great trial of party strength, and with no other object. He desired it, however, to be especially understood that whatever vote he might give on this occasion, he did not intend to depart from his former opinion with respect to the injustice of the appropriation clause. Whenever that principle came in his way he should certainly oppose it, but he had looked into the resolutions proposed by the noble Lord, and he could not see a vestige of the principle of appropriation in them. They were not very clear, he admitted, but he had learned with considerable difficulty and with the assistance of some explanations that were given last night, that not a vestige of appropriation was to be discovered in them. Now, as a friend to the peace of Ireland, and with the peace of Ireland, to the British empire, it was a matter of the last importance that this great question should be settled at once and for ever. He thought that the resolutions now proposed by the noble Lord might lead to such a settlement; but what did he now perceive? There was a firebrand thrown among them. An attempt was made to rescind a resolution which was now obsolete, which he had almost forgotten, and which could not be supposed to bind, and he believed would never bind, any Member of that House. He could not conceive the motion of the hon. Baronet to be brought forward in a friendly spirit. For his own part, he had never thought, and never could think, it just or honest to make a deduction of twenty-five per cent. from the lawful income of the clergy in Ireland, or to give the landowners of that country a bonus for paying what they were bound to pay. He saw, however, that as a question of expediency, something of this kind must be adopted. He observed that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Launceston had, in the tithe bill which he had brought forward, proposed a reduction of the income of the Irish clergy to the extent of twenty-five per cent., and seeing that all Governments considered it was necessary to make some sacrifice, and that the present proposition of the Government was not to make a greater reduction than twenty-five per cent., he thought it expedient to give the landlords of Ireland a bonus, and secure the greater part of the property of the Church at the expense of a portion of it. These resolutions had caused him great difficulty and trouble, because they were somewhat obscure, but he thought that if they were carried, with some amendments which he should propose, they would secure a vast amount of property which a short time longer might place in great jeopardy. Under these feelings he would not stop the working of this measure by any matter of party, or matter of faction—he did not mean to use the words offensively—but he must consider the motion of the hon. Baronet had no other object but to try the strength of parties, and therefore, although he could not give his consent to the principle of appropriation, he was bound in duty to resist the hon. Baronet.

Viscount Sandon

did not rise for the purpose, in any degree, of impugning the motives of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and he fully and entirely believed, that the opinion at which he had arrived, was as honest and as conscientious as it was possible for any man to exercise. He rose for the purpose of vindicating himself and his hon. Friend, the Member for North Devon, who sat beside him, from the charge of bringing forward this motion merely as a trial of party strength, involving no practical consequences. If he really felt that the resolution which it was now sought to rescind, was as obsolete and effete as the hon. Gentleman opposite considered it, or as effete as the Act of Richard 2nd., which was quoted by another hon. Gentleman last night, he should certainly never have thought fit to interpose as an obstacle to the noble Lord's resolutions the motion of his hon. Friend. "But," continued the noble Lord, "this question obsolete? Obsolete! why, the resolutions are only three years old altogether. These were the constant boast of the Gentlemen who brought them forward, and this is the first year in which the principle which they embody is not avowed. It is said, that the proceeding did not take place in the same Parliament; the objection is purely technical; the party which brought forward the appropriation clause is the same, and there is the same Ministry, and the motion to rescind it is opposed by Gentlemen who have re-asserted their abomination almost of the Church of Ireland as an institution. Is it surprising, then, that we should view with jealousy the continuance of these resolutions on the journals? Obsolete, Sir! Idle! Why, we find the hon. Gentleman opposite looking into the resolutions now proposed by the noble Lord, and exerting all the energies of his practised mind in trying to ascertain, if he could, whether the principle of appropriation was involved in them or not; and are we to be taunted—are the clergy of Ireland to be aspersed, because we and they thought that the principle of appropriation is contained in them? I believe that that principle is not here in substance, but in shadow. What, I ask, was the object with which the sixth of these resolutions was preserved? I believe that it was to delude the people of Ireland, and to enable their friends and leaders to tell them that the principle of appropriation was still preserved, although it was not distinctly marked out in the Government measure. What other object can you point out in your sixth resolution? It says, "That it is the opinion of this Committee that the rent-charges for ecclesiastical tithe should be appropriated by law to certain local charges now defrayed out of the consolidated fund and to education, the surplus to form part of the consolidated fund." I see, by this resolution, that you have still a lingering desire to persuade the people of Ireland that there will be a surplus, and that it shall be devoted to other than ecclesiastical purposes. How else is it that you came to talk of a surplus, and of local charges, unless you wished to make it appear that something like the principle of appropriation is retained, though the substance is gone, and it is found, after a curious examination, not to be in existence! The hon. Gentleman who entered upon that examination asserts the principle of appropriation to be obsolete, but I suspect that there are many Members on his side of the House who would not find it quite convenient to avow to their constituents in Ireland that the principle of appropriation is out of date. We are met by the taunt that this motion is idle, and that, as one hon. Gentleman said, we are raising Cock Robin for the purpose of killing him again. But, Sir, it is no light or trifling matter to shake a great part of the property of Ireland to its foundations. It is no light matter for the Ministers of the Crown to have engaged the House of Commons to assert, that the surplus of the property of the Church should be devoted to objects not connected with ecclesiastical institutions, and that no settlement of the tithe question can be considered final or satisfactory which does not embody that principle. It is no light matter for Ministers to have told an excited population this; and, in my opinion, the only way of restoring the value of the property placed in such imminent hazard is, by having these appropriation resolutions rescinded and disavowed. Those, proceeded the noble Lord, who represented the Church, were now called upon to make a great sacrifice, to make a trial of the State as a paymaster, and to sever their interests from the land with which the clergy had hitherto been connected. They were also called upon to enter into a proposition for extending municipal corporations to Ireland, which many conceived would seriously endanger the interests of the Irish Church, and ought they not to see that the Church was placed in a position of safety, and secured from further assaults? As a means of giving security to the Church Establishment of Ireland, it was their (the Opposition's) desire to erase from the statute-book that fatal resolution, the pernicious consequences of which had been denounced at the moment to hon. Gentlemen at the other side, as fettering future legislation, and interposing insuperable obstacles to the final settlement of this question. Did they not now feel the force of that practical inconvenience, which was at the present moment one of its worst visible consequences—that not only in argument, but in fact the most serious obstacles impeded the definitive arrangement of this great question? It had not been his intention to enter into this question at large; but he had been stimulated by the remarks of his hon. Friend who last addressed the House into an effort to re-establish himself, and those with whom he acted in this matter, in the good opinion of the House; and to prove not only that this was not a mere party question, but that the resolution which it was their object to induce the House to rescind, was neither an idle nor an obsolete resolution; that it was not at this moment without its practical effect; and that, if they abstained from rescinding it, it was in vain for them to expect that security for the Irish Church Establishment, without which it was impossible for them to proceed to the consideration of introducing any change into the system of Municipal Government in Ireland. Entertaining these views, he had no difficulty in supporting the motion of his hon. Friend.

Mr. Ward

thought, that there were two distinct questions at present before the House, upon which it was competent to any man to arrive at different conclusions. The first had reference to a series of reso- lutions which had been proposed by the noble Lord, the Secretary for the Home Department for the settlement of the question of Irish tithes; the other was the motion of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, calling upon them to rescind those resolutions which had passed the House of Commons in the month of April, 1835, and in accordance with which alone it was declared that the Irish tithe question could be brought to a final and satisfactory adjustment. With regard to the first of these subjects, the noble Lord's series of resolutions, he (Mr. Ward) would say but little. They were not then legitimately before the House. He admitted—he felt bound to admit—that he had seen in those resolutions the same ambiguity which had been forcibly pointed out on the previous evening by the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, and which had consumed that night so much of the valuable time of his hon. Friend, the Member for Wiltshire. He had thought that he descried in them the germ of an obnoxious measure; but whatever doubts he had last night entertained had been entirely removed by the speeches of the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, and the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, by whom it had been avowed distinctly and manfully to be the intention of Government to propose a new measure for the adjustment of this question, in which the appropriation clause would be abandoned on the faith of a declaration which had been made some time since in another place by the Duke of Wellington. This was a determination which he (Mr. Ward) could unfeignedly say, that he deeply regretted. He looked upon the resolution in question as strictly binding upon Ministers. He could never regard as either "obsolete," or "effete," a resolution which spoke the sense of the Commons' House of Parliament. He conceived it to be a living memorial of the feelings of Parliament upon this subject—a solid principle which they must keep fairly before their view in coming to its consideration; and, convinced as he was, that no other principle could ever conduce to the permanent settlement of this question, was he to be blamed when he expressed his regret that any compromise should have been entered into by her Majesty's Ministers? The noble Lord had informed the House last night how he had been seduced by Tory professions, which he had described as snares not to be trusted. He only hoped, that the noble Lord would not trust to them for the future, and that he would derive some substantial benefit from the mode in which this attempt at compromise and conciliation had been received at the other side. His (Lord J. Russell's) strength lay not in fruitless attempts at conciliation, but in making a manly avowal of principles, and calling on the people of this country for their support. The influential party which was ranged on the Opposition benches, great by its intrinsic power, great by the talents which it possessed, great by the influence which it exercised in the country, might strain every effort to oppose the progress of popular measures; but he ventured to say, that there existed a counteracting power in the people, strong enough, in spite of every obstacle, to carry triumphantly forward a Ministry advocating popular and really useful measures. With these few observations he would dismiss the Government proposition. With regard to the proposition of the hon. Member for North Devon, he trusted, that the hon. Baronet would forgive him for observing, that in his speech of the previous evening, he had entirely omitted any allusion to the merits of the resolution which he sought to rescind. The spirit in which he treated the question might be gathered from his observation, that the effect of the resolution in question was that which he had expected it to produce—the removal of the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth from office. Another right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Dublin, had told them roundly, that this was not only the effect, but the purpose, of the resolution. He had delivered that sentiment in a speech which had electrified the House; that it was party feeling alone which had influenced the bringing forward of this resolution. Why, it amounted almost to an insult to the feelings of the country to say, that there was no principle involved in that memorable resolution, and yet hon. Gentlemen opposite did not hesitate to assert that it originated in purely party motives. Another hon. Baronet (Sir E. Wilmot) asserted, that in the resolution was involved a principle of spoliation; that it was contrary to every principle of justice that any portion of the funds of the Church should be alienated from purposes strictly ecclesiastical. He congratulated the hon. Baronet on the new light which had re- cently broken in upon him. Would the hon. Baronet allow him to ask whether in the case of a certain resolution, which was stronger than that of 1835, a resolution, which might be justly considered as the fons et origo of the other—he alluded to the resolution which he had moved in 1834—would the hon. Baronet allow him to ask whether, if he had not found a seconder in the hon. Member for London, that hon. Baronet would not have seconded it, so great was his zeal at that period for seconding Church resolutions? The hon. Baronet not only voted for the resolution of 1834, but he had very high authority for stating, that the hon. Baronet would have readily seconded it. The hon. Baronet had defended that vote in one of the most perfect, elegantly written, and convincing letters which he (Mr. Ward) had ever had the good fortune to read, addressed to one of his constituents, who had expressed himself displeased with the vote in question. [Sir E. Wilmot: Read the resolution.] He happened fortunately to be prepared with the means of doing what was required by the hon. Baronet, having a copy of the resolution in his pocket, and would trouble the House with it, but he must say, that he should not have done so but for the request of the hon. Baronet. It was in the following terms:— That the Protestant episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population; and that it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this House, that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as now established by law, ought to be reduced. It was this proposition for which the vote of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Warwickshire, was recorded, and it was this proposition which he had defended in a letter which he addressed to one of his constituents, which letter he happened now to hold in his hands. He could not but say, that he considered it exceedingly fortunate, that he could rescue from oblivion such distinguishing proofs of talent as those given in the letter of the hon. Baronet; and he felt it to be a part of his public duty to call the attention of the House to the passages to which he referred. The paper in which it had appeared was a Tory paper, or rather a Conservative paper, for a strong distinction had been drawn between the two terms last night, and it taxed him with having deceived the expectations of his constituents in the vote which he had given. The hon. Baronet, in answer, wrote thus:— Dear Sir,—I have this moment received yours, and in answer beg to say, that I did vote in favour of Mr. Ward's motion; but so far from agreeing with you, that the motion was for the spoliation of the Irish Church, I most conscientiously think, that, as the Commission of Inquiry had been issued, and as a promise had been given by the Ministry, that the surplus (if any) of the Irish revenues should be employed in 'the moral and religious education of the Irish,' such application has given tenfold security to the Church itself. The hon. Baronet, in a subsequent part of his letter, went on to say— Had I thought that the anomalous state of the Irish Church, so connected with the unsettled state of Ireland, did not make revision unavoidable, and had I thought such revision would tend one atom to weaken the Establishment in Ireland, I never would have voted in favour of such a motion. But believing that I strengthen a building, when too big for its foundations, by removing the useless incumbrances which overhang the sound and useful part of it, and that by replacing decayed timbers with sound ones I render the whole permanently secure, I confess I am surprised, that you should say, that I voted for the spoliation of the Irish Church, or acted contrary to the opinions previously expressed. I will go as far as any man living, and perhaps further than many who profess most to secure and support the Established Church, and will be always at my post to defend her rights, privileges, and just demands; but I am not blind to her abuses, and will assist in wiping off with a steady hand the rust which has defiled her altars and dimmed her lustre, and which, if permitted to corode deeper into her sanctuary, will not only deform her external beauty, but will destroy her inward utility and strength. He believed, that the hon. Baronet had not exercised a very steady hand in securing the object which he professed to have in view. He would read some of the comments of the paper in reference to this letter, and then he would leave the matter in the hands of the House. It was said— If such were his (Sir E. Wilmot's) opinions, however we may differ with him and condemn and regret the fact, he did right in voting with Mr. Ward; if such were not the opinions by which he was actuated, however 'double-faced' he might conceive the conduct of Government to be, he could not be justified in supporting a motion subversive of the rights of Church property. Now what was the history of these resolutions? because, in coming to a fair consideration of the question, they must go beyond 1835, and he must say, that these resolutions grew out of a deep and universal conviction, that no measure of conciliation or of coercion could have the effect of tranquillizing Ireland unless the Legislature should strike at the root of the evil, and should adopt some plan by which the anomaly should be put an end to, by which one seventh of the population of Ireland were compelled to pay for the support of the Church miscalled "national," to whose doctrines they did not subscribe. To the universal feeling of disgust at the continuance of such a system, he (Mr. Ward) gave utterance, humble as he was, and having nothing but the force of truth and facts to bear him out; but from the moment when the principle was launched forth in the House, such was the power of truth, and such the effect of the allegation of facts which could not be denied, that the principle had since been a great battle-ground on which all general questions had been fought. It was the ground on which the Government of the noble Lord who had preceded the right hon. Baronet had been dissolved, and it was that on which the Government of the right hon. Baronet himself was formed, and on that, too, had he rested the fate of his Administration; and yet the hon. Member for Wiltshire came forward and said, that the resolutions by which this principle was adopted and established were become obsolete, and the House was called on to rescind them. But why should the House take such a step? On what plea? The hon. Baronet had given no reasons for it—he had shown no grounds on which the Parliament of 1835 must be supposed to have taken an erroneous view of the subject, nor had he exhibited any statement from which It could be inferred, that the Protestant Church in Ireland possessed the attributes of a national Establishment, or possessed the means of performing any of the duties which would be required of it. The hon. Baronet said nothing on that part of the question, and assuming, that the resolutions of 1835 were an emanation from the party spirit which he alleged prevailed at that time, he called on the House to pave the way to some improved plan of government of the Church by rescinding those resolutions, saying at the same time that his reasons for moving in the matter were an affection for Ireland, and a desire always to remedy proved abuses. He would say in reference to this last expression that the hon. Baronet was an apt scholar in the school of the right. hon. Baronet who sat near him. The right hon. Baronet had conferred an inestimable benefit on the country in providing the people with such a text-word as "practical grievances," which had been already adopted throughout the whole empire; but if this subject did not present a "practical grievance," he begged that the hon. Baronet would explain to him any case which did. He did not desire, however, to go back to recapitulate all the facts of the case, or all the arguments which might be brought forward on the subject of this question, nor would he again go into the details referred to by the hon. Baronet, who spoke last night on that side of the House, of the thousands and tens of thousands of Catholics compelled to kneel at the mud hovels, which were consecrated at their churches, while splendid buildings were raised at their expense for the dominant sect. But if the hon. Baronet was justified in calling on the House to rescind the resolutions of the former Parliament, by which he must admit they must be bound until the House should set them aside, or confirm them by its vote to-night, he was bound to show cause, to exhibit some reason, and to prove, that the whole Church and system of religion of the country required it. He was aware that if he dwelt too long on the question of population, and of finance, he should be told in the words of the hon. Member who had just now borrowed again from Dr. Chalmers, and another great text giver, that he was an apostate to that coarse and sordid utilitarianism which was so strongly objected to, and that he was raising a question of piety on a money consideration. He must say, however, that it was a money consideration on all sides, and they were forced to take lessons from the clergy on this subject. Had not the House heard of the petition which had been presented from the clergy of Armagh, by which the rate of tranquillity was estimated at the rate of payment they received. He would tell the House that there was just as much sordidness on the part of the clergy who had signed that petition as could be imputed to any other party. [Cries of "oh, oh!"] He had never, he believed, interrupted any debate by any such cries as those which were raised now against him, and he sincerely trusted, therefore, that the House would suffer him to continue, and would not interrupt him by that murmuring, which he was unaware that he had ever employed towards any hon. Member. He was induced to say what he had done only in consequence of what had fallen from some hon. Gentlemen, and who rose and accused them of being guilty in every step which they took of coarse and sordid feelings. He disliked the argument, and he did not resort to it himself except on this occasion. The question was one purely of money; and it was a point for consideration whether the clergy should continue to be paid out of funds provided by the public; and whether, as they were for public purposes, they should not be placed at the disposal of the Legislature? Why was the tithe paid to them, unless it was for the purpose of religious instruction? And must not the character of that instruction vary according to the time, and must it not be varied according to the people of the country? He knew no other test or basis on which the system could be founded. The hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, had told the House, that the Catholic Church was the oldest in point of standing. He was glad that even he admitted the antiquity of the Catholic Church; but he was prepared to contend that the property was no more the property of the Church than this House was the property of the hon. Members who sat in it. It was property for the Legislature to administer; and it was for the Legislature to administer it properly, according to the wants of the people. In Ireland alone the Legislature had trampled on the feelings of the people, and their conduct had produced the greatest anarchy and confusion; and until the principle was pursued which was laid down, no alteration could be expected. It was said then, that the Catholic Church should be admitted to be the Established Church in Ireland, and he admitted it; and although he did not wish to see that principle carried out, yet, according to the principle in which the House had legislated for itself, the Church should be put in possession of the property of the Church, and if this could not be done, the Legislature should do that which was next best—they should admit, that they could not. Then, if they could not give spiritual instruction, let them do that which was next best—let them give general instruction—let them combat ignorance; and if he wanted any confirmation of this principle, he might call on the House to remember that line "that ignorance is the curse of heaven, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly." If they really desired to secure peace, they must work out the principle, and, they must support it as manfully as possible, or they would never have the tranquillity which they sought. He had a high authority for this, although some hon. Members might suppose that it was not the business of a civil government to support any particular species of Church Establishment, but to protect life, liberty, and property. He held in his hand an extract from the writings of Bishop Watson, who said— The protection of life, liberty, and property (the object of all civil government), is not inseparably or exclusively connected with any particular form of Church government. The blessings of civil society depend upon the proper execution of good laws, and upon the good morals of the people; but no one will attempt to prove, that the laws and morals of the people may not be as good in Germany, Switzerland, or Scotland, under a presbyterian, as in England or France, under an episcopal, form of Church government. Again, after laying down in the broadest terms the principle, that population was the only sound basis of an Establishment, the precise character of which the majority must determine, he said— Suppose, however, a majority of dissenters in the House of Commons. What then? Why then the House of Commons may propose to the House of Lords a bill for changing the constitution of the Church of England into the constitution of the Church of Scotland. Be it so. What then? Suppose the King and the House of Lords to agree to such a change. What then? Why then the present form of the Church of England would be changed into another form! And this is the catastrophe of so many tragical forebodings? The change would hardly be to be regretted, if brought about by a simultaneous change in the sentiments of the nation at large, Now, unless the House should follow out such a principle as this they could not have nationality in the Church Establishment. They might call the Church of Ireland what they pleased, but it was useless to give it the name of national, for there was something hollow in such a term; and whatever it might possess of endearment to the people, it lost that character when it sustained its position only by force of an Act of Parliament, and not from the feelings and wishes of the people at large. It then came to the worst of all denominations—that of political and religious fraud. It was what a Gentleman, who he believed belonged to the Opposition party, called a "political lie." He alluded to a passage in a remarkable work on the French Revolution recently published by Mr. Carlyle. Talking of the hollowness of the French Government, he said, that it did not perform the duties which it should perform as a government, and he said, that the institution was, in fact, a political lie, and that all must end in anarchy and confusion and ruin, and he went on— For nature is true, and not a lie. No lie you can speak, or act, but it will come at last to nature's hank for payment. Pity only often that it has had so long a circulation. Lies, and the burden of evil they bring, are passed on, shifted from back to back, and from rank to rank, and so land ultimately on the lowest rank, who with spade and mattock, with sore heart, and empty wallet, daily come in contact with reality, and can pass the lie no further. Apply this to Ireland—your lie the national church—passed on by the landowners to the tenants, and from them to the humblest cottier, who could pass the lie no further, and, because he knew the Church was not his national Church, risked life itself in resisting its claims. Concession, or penal laws, their choice! He would not perpetuate this state of things. Others might decry the Irish, and think to justify their own apostacy by exciting the prejudices of the people against a country that formed the brightest jewel in the crown of England. He would not share their guilt or their madness. He set against the principle of fanaticism that of equal rights and equal justice, and he called on the House, abjuring those grovelling prejudices which some sought to cloak under the garb of religion, to proclaim to the world its determination to double the power of Great Britain, by making her a happy and an united empire. Let them work out this principle in Ireland; but first let them see how the hollow national Church system had worked, and they would see how it had passed from rank to rank, until at last it had landed on the lowest possible position in which it could stand, and until the peasantry, seeing the manner in which they were taxed, had risked their lives and their liberty and their property in opposing it. He had had no difficulty in coming to a conclusion on the subject of those resolutions—he had no choice at all; but he must now go on in the course of concession, or he must conclude that the Government would have recourse at once to the penal laws; he did not say, that this would be a course of proceeding which could be approved by those who were friendly to the Irish people but he saw that it would be a necessary consequence of the continuance to act on the principles which were now adopted. Now, he for one was not prepared to take a part in the proceedings of those who endeavoured to produce a strong feeling on this subject through the country, nor were his feelings to be excited by the course adopted by two hon. Baronets who had gone about the country exciting and pandering to the evil feelings of the people, and endeavouring to produce an agitation in their minds on this subject. He would neither share their madness nor their guilt; but he might raise against them the principles of equal rights and equal justice, and he did not then care for the fanaticism by which they had excited the country, and more especially one portion of it which should have been ashamed to have been so acted upon. The hon. Baronets seemed to have arrayed their arguments against the principle which he was contending for; and one of them, as if to justify his own apostacy, seemed to have held the most extravagant extremes. In conclusion, he called upon the House to give a direct negative to the proposition of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon; and he called upon those Members who sat on the other side of the House not to insist upon this motion, because if they did he should have no hesitation in saying, that they at once identified themselves with the hon. Baronets to whom he had, already referred. The motion and the arguments used by the hon. Baronet were identified in principle, and he contended that if hon. Members adopted that principle, they would inflict a stain of disgrace on themselves. He called on the House, therefore, to express its sentiments in reference to this principle by refusing its sanction to the motion of the hon. Baronet, which must now be considered emblematical of all evil intentions to Ireland. He did not rest his claim to the attention of the House on the speech of the hon. Baronet himself, but on the cheers with which his own declaration was received, and he called on the House to double the power and importance of Great Britain by announcing from this time forth that they should be looked upon by all as an united and happy land.

Lord Teignmouth

was understood to say, that so far from considering the appropriation clause as dormant, it seemed to be the burthen of all the speeches which were made on the other side. The principle seemed, as it were, at the heart's core of hon. Members. The noble Lord had shown, that he had the principle of that clause at heart, and it had been avowed in a most candid and manly manner by the last Speaker, who stated, that not only would he have the appropriation clause, but that he would go the length of transferring the whole revenues of the Irish Church to the majority, and that was to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The conclusion, then, to which he must come was this—that the appropriation clause was the vivified principle for which hon. Gentlemen opposite were contending. The best way to discuss any subject, was to come at once to the point; and certainly the hon. Member who last addressed the House, had not been deficient in manliness and candour in coming to the point in which he was anxious that the House should concur. He had openly avowed his wish, that there should be a Catholic Church establishment in that country; he had represented that, in the opinion of the people, the Protestant Church was considered as a curse. He, on the part of the Protestants, must beg to deny, and in that opinion he was sure that no small minority of the Roman Catholics would concur. [Mr. O'Connell: No, not one.] If the hon. Member (Mr. Ward) had seen as much of Ireland as he had, he would admit, that the Protestants, and no small portion of the Roman Catholics, would not join with him in his opinion as to the Protestant Church Establishment in that country. If he wished to put the question to the gentry in Ireland, they (he meant the Protestant gentry, as having the great mass of the property in their hands) would say, that they regarded the Protestant Church Establishment as the greatest blessing to the country. If the hon. Member put it as a question of universal suffrage, it was certainly possible that he might get a different result, though the numbers against the Protestant Establishment would be by no means so large as he seemed to think. He would support the amendment of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, because he had heard many cogent reasons in its favour, but he had heard no good argument against it. He might be considered, as in fact he was, a novice in matters, relating to the business of the House but be owned he had listened with much disappointment to the speech of the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), and it fell far short of what he conceived was necessary to support such a proposition as the noble Lord had laid before the House. In the whole of the address of the noble Lord, there seemed to be something to depress his spirit and unnerve his arm, and he seemed to think that the measure which he was urging would not have the effect of pacifying Ireland, In one part the noble Lord appeared as if he wished to terrify the House into his measure—while on the one side he pointed to the tranquillity which would result from his plan, on the other he told them of the ——Bella, horrida bella, Et Tybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno. Non Simoïs tibi, nec Xanthus, nee Dorica "castra Defuerint. The hon. Baronet, the Member for East Cornwall, had truly said that this appropriation clause was a mill-stone which would hang about the necks of the Government, and he had talked of hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House killing Cock Robin; but though Cock Robin had been killed, it appeared that he was again alive and chirping. If this clause was only a miserable Cock Robin, why did they not throw it aside, when they must know it was an insuperable bar to the settlement of the question by those who valued the integrity of the Church Establishment in Ireland? He would not deny that this amendment implied a distrust of, and a want of confidence in, the present Government; he admitted it did both, and that was one of the main grounds on which he gave it his support. He confessed that, with every respect for the personal character, the talent, and ability of several Members of her Majesty's Government, he had no trust in them as a Government, and for this reason, that their minds seemed to be wholly unsettled and their determination unfixed on a subject which agitated the country, and the settlement of which would tend to pacify the minds of men in both countries. That subject related to the Church Establishment. Whether they looked to Scotland, or England, or Ireland, they saw the same vacillation and weakness; and if they looked at the other side of the question, they saw nothing to lessen that vacillation. Seeing this, he would support the amendment, because he looked upon its success as a heavy blow to the present Administration.

Mr. Bellew

said, I am rejoiced at the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for North Devonshire, because it states, in clear terms, the object of the party with which he acts, and places before the public, with a distinctness that admits of no mistake, the line of uncompromising policy which it would be their intention to follow in the government of Ireland, should events again place the right hon. Member for Tamworth at the head of affairs. For does any one doubt, that the views of the Government with regard to the Church question must mainly influence their conduct in all the details of administration in Ireland? It is the cardinal point on which all their policy turns, and therefore it is that the measure at present brought forward by the noble Lord, defective as it may be in some respects, and falling far short of what the Irish people might reasonably expect, would yet, I am convinced, meet with their cordial support, not only for the benefits it would confer, but still more for the valuable assurance it would convey of the intention of the Government to defer to the opinion and conciliate the good-will of the great body of the people of that country. And herein appears to me the great difference between Gentlemen opposite and her Majesty's Government. The Tories say, the Catholics would abuse the powers that would be conferred on them by the Corporation Bill, that they would not rest satisfied with the arrangement of Church property that would take place under the present bill, in the same way as they predicted all sorts of calamities from the new franchises created by the Reform Bill. They have no idea of placing trust in the power of the social virtues, and relying with generous confidence on the predominance of the sympathies which arise from common interests over the difference of creeds. They rest upon a cold-hearted scepticism in every power but that of bigotry, and are sullenly incredulous in every hope which arises from the increased enlightenment and the improved condition of the people. When, therefore, the hon. Mover of the amendment says not one penny of surplus Church property shall be devoted to national objects, the people of Ireland rightly conceive that declaration as extending much further, and including within its range another species of property more directly under the control of Government; and while the hon. Baronet is apparently only looking to the security of a bishop in his see, or a rector in his living, they perceive that he is really preserving the exclusive character of the judge and the magistrate, and of every other functionary connected with the executive department of the State. So dovetailed with the whole system of Tory misrule is the Church Establishment in Ireland, that you cannot insist on preserving that Establishment in all its integrity without bringing home to the mind of every man that you mean to reform nothing. I therefore lay little weight on the fact of the surplus being great or small; it is enough for me that the principle is asserted of rendering it available to the national service, without reference to sect or party. But what is the situation in which Members opposite are placed? No matter how large the amount of surplus, whether it be one hundred or one million, it must still go to the Church, exhausting every imaginary want, and then creating new; and remember that, acting under the fiction of being a national as well as an Established Church, which two terms are often conveniently mixed up together, you will be bound to provide churches for the 800 parishes with less than fifty Protestants, as well as for the 151 where there is not, at the present moment, a single true believer. If we suppose all this done, and the new churches not only built, but filled—which I admit is stretching our vision very far—the work is not complete. It will then be time to comply with the prayer of some of the petitions presented to the House this Session, and to re-establish the ten bishops who were, without much resist- ance from any quarter, so unceremoniously disposed of by the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire. Now, Sir, I ask the house if they are ready by their vote this night to carry into effect these objects, which, to be consistent, they must be? In considering this question with regard to the number of Catholics and Protestants, it is quite curious to see how Tory arguments vary upon this subject; when municipal privileges are in question, we hear of nothing but the number and the power of the Catholics; but when the scene is shifted to the Church, they immediately disappear, and are reduced to their situation in the time of Lord Clare, who stated, that the law did not contemplate their existence. But there is one point with regard to the subject of numbers to which I beg leave more particularly to call the attention of the House. It is not only the relative numbers of the Church of England we are to consider, but also their locality, and this view of the case was taken by the right hon. Member for Tamworth in his speech on bringing forward the Emancipation Bill. He stated, that it might be supposed the Government could be carried on through the agency of the million and a half of Protestants. But, then, said the right hon. Baronet, three-fourths of that number reside in Ulster, and how are we to carry on the government in the other three provinces? And the same difficulty with regard to the allocation of funds appears to me to exist in the present case. However matters might be managed in Ulster, how, with any show of decency, could you go on squandering thousand after thousand in the other provinces? It appears that four counties in Ulster, namely, Down, Derry, Antrim, and Armagh, contain more than half the Protestants of Ireland; add the Protestants of Dublin, and you have two-thirds of the whole number. In Connaught you have twenty-nine Catholics to one Protestant; except Dublin, and you have the same proportions in Leinster; except the immediate neighbourhood of Cork, and you have the same proportion in Munster; add to this, that in the Protestant province of Ulster the Protestants of the Church of England are not the most numerous Protestant sect; and that there is not, I believe, more than a single diocese in the whole of Ireland in which the Protestants of the Church Establishment are in a majority. It appears, from authentic returns, that in 1766 the Protestants comprised one-third of the whole population of Ireland; in 1822, one-seventh; in 1834, one-tenth; so that just in proportion as the Protestants decrease, their churches are to become more numerous, as if the meaning of the word church was literally confined to stone and mortar, and that the flock was a mere appendage, which might or might not exist, without affecting its character as a congregation of Christian believers. It is said, that additional funds are required for church extension in Scotland, and for giving efficiency to the moral and religious instruction of the people of that country, Why, I ask, then, if this principle of addition is good for Scotland, why is not that of subtraction equally applicable to Ireland? If there are, as it is stated, districts of twenty and thirty miles in extent requiring religious instruction in Scotland, I answer, that there are districts of equal size in Ireland which stand in need of no such assistance. If I am told, that in the Highlands there are large congregations without a pastor, I answer, that there are in Ireland pastors without congregations. If I am told that, for the maintenance of peace and good order, it is necessary that the number of the clergy should be increased in Scotland, I answer that, to produce the very same results, it is desirable that in Ireland they should be diminished. Can it, then, I ask, be contemplated, with such facts staring us in the face, not only not to diminish the present revenues of the Church, but to provide that in no possible contingency shall the Protestant Church be made the means of increasing the education or relieving the wants of the Irish people? Is it the popularity for the last fifty years of Church Establishments through Europe that urges the hon. Member to his present course; or has he forgotten the examples of Catholic Italy and Protestant Germany, of France and Tuscany, and Switzerland and Holland, in none of which countries do tithes exist, and where the very idea of an establishment that does not equally benefit every portion of the nation is unknown? In these countries an appropriation clause has long since been carried into effect, and the consequence is, that religious strife and clerical rapacity are no longer heard of. Or is it the course of events with regard to this question in Ireland that makes the hon. Member consider this a favourable opportunity to call upon the House to retrace its steps? In 1832 the opposition to the payment of tithes raged in full force in Ireland, and meetings were held and resolutions adopted in every part of the country expressive of a determination never to cease from every legal resistance to that impost. In that same year the hon. and learned Member for Tipperary brought forward resolutions on the subject, and about thirty Members divided with him. Six years have elapsed, and I find the following declaration agreed to within the last three weeks at a meeting of twenty parishes in the county of Wexford. Resolved—That we will never cease our constitutional agitation until tithes are utterly extinguished in name and in reality. That latterly, and more especially at the present moment, our peace of mind is banished, and our industry interrupted; our goods are seized, and in many instances our persons incarcerated; that, in short, we are suffering the most terrible persecution that the hatred of bad men acting under the authority of intolerant laws can devise; and that it is our deliberate opinion, that if the country be not speedily relieved from this species of martyrdom, the Irish people will be driven to the extreme alternative of denying themselves the use of all taxed articles. And this night resolutions the same in spirit, but less favourable to the interests of the Church, are brought forward, and will have voting for them, instead of thirty nearly ten times that number. What is the inevitable deductions from these facts. Why, that the spirit of resistance amongst the Irish people is as strong, and their power of enforcing their wishes stronger than at any former period; and it is in this state of things, with a system spreading misery and bloodshed through the land that we have Christian clergymen coming forward as petitioners to this House and adopting the sentiments of the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire, and requesting of the Government to vindicate the law, no matter at what expense or at what loss of life the object may be accomplished; and these are the men who appeal to Scripture and talk of introducing the truths of Christianity amongst the benighted Irish. Sir, I shall not indulge in any personal reflections upon the Protestant clergy. It is agreed upon all hands that their situation is a most painful one. But this I will say, that I believe the great mass of the Irish Protestant clergy are used as instruments in the hands of a political party, who, while they talk of the security of the Church, look upon it as the stepping-stone to their own ascendancy in the State. How else can we account for the statements we see daily in the speeches and in the publications of the Tory party, that the Churches of England and Ireland are in every respect identical, and that you cannot reform the one without putting the other in peril? No principle can in my mind, be more fatal to the true interests of both. You may call it the united Church of England and Ireland; but it is only a union upon parchment. You cannot, do what you will, make it the Church of the Irish nation, closely identified with the people, as in this country, by old associations, historical recollections, by present interest—often, too, by feeling and affection; on the contrary, the Protestant Church in Ireland is alien from the soil. It was forced upon its people by external violence and the spirit of conquest, and arrogant dominion continue to pervade it until this hour. It has not merged in the body of the nation; it stands scowling defiance and exercising oppression towards the producers of its wealth and luxury. It is still an army of occupation in an enemy's country, jealous of the inhabitants, estranged from them, and, in its turn, the object of their dislike and suspicion. Why do the English and the Scotch Churches preserve in a large degree the affections of their respective countries? Because the foundations of both these establishments are broad and national, and therefore it is that their altars are secure without artillery, and the revenue of their ministers collected without bayonets. Would, I ask, such be the case if either in England or Scotland there existed a Catholic Church endowed with the same wealth, and embraced by the same relative number of the population as is the Protestant Church in Ireland? It well becomes the champions of tithes, the enemies of municipal liberties, and the foes to every popular and practical system of education, to talk of disturbance and outrage—they whose fatal ascendancy in Ireland has been the main cause of the misfortunes of that country, whose feelings they omit no occasion to outrage, whose political rights they are pledged to oppose, whose religious liber- ties they trampled on as long as they could, and for whose grievances alone they feel friendship and delight. It may be said that these objections apply to the very existence of the Protestant Church. I can assure the House that I do not urge them with any such intention, and that if the present bill passed into law I believe the Irish people would act with perfect good faith, and that while they object to paying for Protestant clergy where there are no flocks, they would cheerfully wave all abstract principle as to paying a Church to which they did not belong, provided that Church was only reduced within due limits, and that pay was rendered unobjectionable in its mode of collection. It will, I am aware, be urged that this is not fighting the battle on the great principle of civil and religious liberty, and that consequently we render indifferent many in this country who on those principles would be our firmest allies. But I look to the practical results, and I ask of such persons to consider the state to which society in Ireland is reduced. Owing mainly to this Church question being unsettled, civil intercourse is poisoned, family is divided against family, and the good and kindly feeling which ought and naturally would exist between neighbours, who had lived from their childhood in one another's vicinity is destroyed. A silent war, frittering away the energies, and hopes, and enjoyments, of the people, is at this moment carrying on in many parts of Ireland—a war of citation and distresses and petty annoyances; confidence between landlord and tenant is at an end. The Protestant gentleman, with his son, or his brother, or his nephew, in the possession of a good living, not only looks with distaste, but with a very natural feeling of and hostility, on his Catholic tenant, who is, as he thinks, depriving him, or at least endeavouring to deprive him, of his property. The landlord, in his turn, is not slow in taking his revenge, as appears from the avowed declarations of many Protestant proprietors, including some near connexions of one of the learned Members for the University of Dublin, and which was so feelingly alluded to by Lord Mulgrave, as an almost insuperable obstacle to preserving the peace in Ireland. It is, I believe, in evidence before Committees of this House, that landlords have dismissed their Catholic tenants as such, and put Protestants in their places. One district of 350 acres is mentioned, where twenty Catholic tenants have been replaced by eighteen Protestants. To proceed from acts to language, I find a noble Lord, the Member for Bath, at some meeting he attended in Dublin, stating as follows:—"That it is a proud day for Dublin, a proud day for Ireland, that such a meeting should take place in opposition to those whose meat is anarchy, whose drink is rebellion, and whose creed is superstition." I give these instances as a sample of the feelings and acts that are generated by the present anomalous condition of a large portion of the proprietary of Ireland, whom this Church question prevents having any community of feeling with the population about them. We are told the law must be obeyed, and we hear of harsh language and harsh measures enough being applied to the Catholic tenant who breaks the law. But I answer that the law itself is an abomination, and that, amidst the many evils that beset Ireland, it is the master grievance, in which all others are swallowed up; for this plain reason, that as long as the Church Establishment exists on its present scale, it gives to its professors not only a legal but a substantial superiority over the rest of the country; but, above all, because it maintains, and it alone upholds, an ascendancy which extends to the very lowest class of the community, and, in the words of Burke, gives to the Protestant cottier, debased by his poverty but exalted by his share of the ruling Church, a feeling of pride and preeminence over his Catholic fellow-labourer. This is the feeling to which the present bill would in a great measure put an end, and to which, until there is an end put, there never will be peace in Ireland.

Mr. Shaw

said, that from the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and the hon. Member who had preceded him a short time before on the same side (Mr. Ward), it would appear that, in their opinion, no measure would be satisfactory for settling the tithe question in Ireland without possessing the appropriation clause. There was one thing in which both sides would most cordially agree—namely, in an inclination to bring that long-agitated and vexatious subject, to a final and satisfactory adjustment if possible. The only subject of difference between both sides of the House was the manner in which that final adjustment could be best accomplished. That it was a desirable object every one admitted; but to attain this object such separate and distinct modes of proceeding were recommended that it was not easy to agree upon a course which had any likelihood of receiving the support of both sides of the House. The noble Lord who had brought forward the subject last night, had thought it necessary, on a former occasion, to embody in certain barren resolutions, an abstract principle, which, however ineffectual it might appear, was highly offensive to hon. Members at that side of the House. He was not of opinion that this was the very best period to enter into the matter of those resolutions, and he certainly should not at present discuss that subject, if the noble Lord and some of his supporters had not rendered it necessary by their observations last night, and during the debate on that evening. It was the opinion of those on his side of the House that the proper course to adopt was, by rescinding the resolutions as moved last night, to go into a full discussion of the question free and unshackled by any resolutions affirmative of appropriation, or of anything which might be so construed which certainly would be a more fitting frame of mind for the Legislature than if they went into a discussion of its merits, with a pledge of their opinions already recorded before the House. The noble Lord, when moving his resolutions last night, said, or at least he understood the noble Lord to imply by his speech, that no measure for the adjustment of tithes in Ireland would be final and satisfactory unless it contained some enactment at least similar in its nature to the appropriation clause. The noble Lord did not go so far as to say, that those resolutions would tend to a final and satisfactory adjustment. Why then should hon. Members at the Opposition side of the House support the proposition of the noble Lord, if, even on his own showing, it would not be satisfactory? Where was the inducement to the friends of the Church to acquiesce in the arrangement if it would not be final, and that they might be called on next year for another change? They lost all inducement to support it. The friends of the Church were offered no motive for agreeing to the noble Lord's resolutions. He (Mr. Shaw) would not contend that the noble Lord should undertake that the bill would be final and satisfactory. Per- haps that might be too much to ask. But he would ask this—that the noble Lord, as representative of her Majesty's Ministry, should not come down to that House and ask a pledge to be recorded upon the journals of that House pledging themselves before hand that the clergy and the people would not be satisfied with the projected settlement. Yet this would be no more nor less than the effect of continuing the resolutions. The noble Lord must be perfectly aware, that there was a great and powerful minority at that side of the House, and he must be also aware that the great bond of union between them was the inviolability of Church property. Under those circumstances must the noble Lord not know, without a moment's consideration, that they never would give their consent to support any measure having for its basis or in its composition a clause of appropriation in name or in substance? As he had before remarked, this was not the most fitting time to enter into the resolutions, and but for some observations of the noble Lord last night he would not now recur to their merits; but from that circumstance he felt it necessary to allude to them. He was always an advocate for an equitable adjustment of Church property: he was an advocate for an abolition of pluralities, and a distribution of Church property more equally; but this distribution should be amongst its own members in order to be just. With respect to the changing of tithes into rent charge, and thus transferring the payment from the occupier of land, who in numerous cases would not object to pay tithes to the owner of the land, he was of opinion that it was a most wise arrangement, and calculated to effect a great deal of good. With respect to the change of tithe into rent-charge, he believed there could be scarcely a second opinion as to its propriety or its good effects. He had always been of opinion that it was a change calculated to produce much good, but he thought the reduction made of tithes in favour of the landlord was much too great. However, he would admit, it was a question of degree; for there certainly should be some reduction as payment for the additional trouble and responsibility which would be placed on the landlords. He should, perhaps, not say another word upon this subject, but here he could not allow to pass an observation of the noble Lord's, directed against the Irish Protest- ant clergy, and upon their part he felt bound to say the observation of the noble Lord was most uncalled for. In any country there was no other instance of a body of men bearing up against such continued privations and unmerited sufferings with an equal degree of forbearance. There would be a difficulty in finding any body of men more deserving of their warmest sympathy for patience under suffering, and for every virtue, than the Irish clergy, who were viewed, it would appear, by the noble Lord in such a light that, act as they might, they could not please him. Unmoved when the war of opposition had been brought to their domestic hearths—when their families were in many cases starving—when poverty was assailing them in every shape—and it was thought by the noble Lord that even those sufferings, superinduced by no misconduct of theirs, did not entitle them to the poor privilege of complaint; for when they had in the enjoyment of that melancholy privilege of suffering, appealed to the Government, the noble Lord's sympathy was conveyed in a joke. He thought they were so used to grieve, they had found— ——Such a charm in melancholy, They would not if they could be gay. Now, when, under more prosperous circumstances, they made a reasonable offer of concession, the noble Lord met them with the sneer that they were only offering what the law exacted of them. This was a complete mistake of the noble Lord, and he (Mr. Shaw) asserted, without fear of contradiction, that a more patient, for bearing, and exemplary set of men, though tried by the severest test of suffering and persecution, never existed than the Protestant clergy of Ireland. With respect to the third resolution, perhaps the noble Lord was of opinion, that it was only putting in force what the law had already ordained. This was a great mistake of the noble Lord's, and one which could not be too soon corrected. He held in his hand a table of the Church revenues of Ireland; its amount was 498,148l. This was not all the revenue of parochial clergy; the parochial clergy received 486,784l., and the residue was made up by what was paid to the bishops, &c. All this he would beg to remind hon. Gentlemen was not the amount of tithes, for, at present, there was no tithe in Ireland, it was the amount of the composition entered into in lieu of tithe throughout the country generally. By that sum, there was payable by the landlords 257,083l., and in addition to this, they had undertaken the payment of a large portion of the residue during the last three years', that is undertaken to pay it upon the part of the tenantry as it had been permitted by the Act of 3 and 4 William 4th, cap. 100, which permitted the head landlord to undertake the payment for one year and the minor landlords for six months, as well as he (Mr. Shaw) recollected. For this they had been allowed a per tentage by the clergy, and so general had this become, that there now remained but 240,000l. which were not undertaken, so that the question was very fast settling itself. He had always been most desirous of a settlement between the landlords and the clergy, and of this he was sure, that it would be far more easy to bring the landlords and the clergy to an understanding than the clergy and the occupiers. When the landlords had undertaken to ensure the tithes, the clergy had, in all cases, willingly allowed them fifteen per cent for their trouble. At least they had, unless in some cases where the landlords had undertaken for the good tenants, but not for those more likely to be recusants. In those cases, the clergy said, "You leave us the worst tenants and undertake for those with whom there would be no trouble." This was a case where the clergy might feel themselves not called on to contribute; but he pledged himself that, in nearly all the other cases they had allowed the amount he had stated. He was of opinion that the reduction proposed was entirely too great for the advantage conferred, and he was most anxious not to allow so large a reduction. However, it had this advantage, that between them the question was only one of amount. With respect to the resolution which proposed the investment of the purchase money, he should say, that in purchasing tithe property they would not be able to realise fifty-six per cent. upon what the clergyman receives, and, therefore, he would ask, why lose so much in an unnecessary proceeding? There would be great risk also during the period of transition, and when once you had relieved the Roman Catholic occupier, he would much prefer that the charge should be spread through the entire locality, co-extensive with the duties and responsibility of the clergyman. That, he thought, was of the essence of an Established Church, and that to act upon an opposite principle tended to unestablish the Church. The rent-charge would be payable by the Protestant proprietors to the Protestant clergy, and if times became troubled, or confiscation was the object of those who governed the State, the rent-charges in the hands of the Protestant proprietory would be much more difficult to reach than the Consolidated Fund on the one hand, or church lands on the other. There was also the argument against so much land being tied up in mortmain—the secular occupation it would entail on the clergy, and the certainty that it could not be as well managed by persons having only a life estate as by an ordinary proprietor. Or, if agitation was the object, that could succeed more easily amongst the tenants of church lands than the Protestant owners of the first estate of inheritance. As regarded the payments from the Consolidated Fund, he entirely objected to that plan, inasmuch as it would reduce the clergy to stipendiaries on the State, until a new and distant investment of their property should be made, and subject them, as the Armagh petition truly stated, notwithstanding the noble Lord's dissent, to a yearly investigation under the specious pretext of public saving. They then came to the sixth resolution, which seemed to him either a mere juggle or something worse; for if, according to the professed purpose of the Government, a bonâ fide purchase of the rent-charges by the State was the object, why not pay with the Consolidated Fund on the one hand, and receive the whole produce of the rent-charges into the Consolidated Fund on the other? But no! here lurked at least the form, if not the substance, of the appropriation clause, and as such the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin represented it, whether he himself considered it did contain the appropriation clause, or, wishing to give the go-by to that principle, desired that others should suppose that was his opinion. Taking the sixth resolution, then, in connexion with the tenth, which placed the lay tithe on an entirely different footing, it was impossible not to suspect that a prospect was held out of some ulterior application of this fund, when it had divested out of the Protestant clergy. With reference to the sixth resolution, the noble Lord had fallen into a strange fallacy, for he argued thus—that he would commute composition into rent-charge, to save the payment by the Roman Catholic occupier, in which he concurred; but then, that object being accomplished, the noble Lord reasoned as if the former state of things continued, and assigned as the reason for applying the fund to local purposes, and especially to education, that it would be most in accordance with the sentiments of the payers, whereas the very reverse would be the case. Another noble Lord's logic was truly Irish, "for," said the noble Lord, "I take the payment of the Church off the Roman Catholic occupier, because it is distasteful to him, and having put it on the Protestant proprietor on that account, I substitute a payment the most disagreeable possible to him, that is, one for the support of the present system of national education in Ireland, to which the great majority of the Irish gentry were opposed." But the noble Lord charged him, and his side of the House with having deceived him in respect of the settlement of the great Irish questions, and taken advantage of his conciliatory disposition. That he (Mr. Shaw) most positively denied. First, with regard to the Poor-law Bill, he challenged the noble Lord not to refuse that justice to the Irish members on his (Mr. Shaw's) side of the House, to bear testimony to their having discussed it in the entire absence of party spirit. For himself, he had a right to claim this credit, that so far from gaining any popularity, or promoting any personal or party object, by the course he had taken, he had, on the contrary, given considerable offence to his own friends in Ireland; and, by assisting the noble Lord to improve the bill, had incurred the disapprobation of the great majority of his constituents, and those with whom he generally acted in Ireland. Then, as to the Irish Municipal Bill, the noble Lord had taken praise to himself, to which he had no title. The noble Lord's abstinence on that bill was not at the seeking of his side of the House. The first day of the Session, the 20th of November, the noble Lord gave notice that he would move to bring in the bill on the 5th of December, and in pursuance of that notice the noble Lord moved for leave on that day. He was the only person who spoke on his side of the House, and the question was, whether the noble Lord was justified in saying, that he was deceived in the expectation, that those on his (Mr. Shaw's) side of the House, had waved the question of appropriation, as an essential ingredient to the settlement of the Municipal Bill. He (Mr. Shaw,) said on that occasion—"I trust that the noble Lord is prepared to proceed pari passu with the other two Irish measures that are referred to in the same paragraph of her Majesty's speech. The noble Lord has, I know, laid upon the table a bill for the relief of the Irish poor, but of the Irish Tithe Bill the House has not as yet heard, nor has one word been said on the untoward subject of the appropriation clause. I however, for one, am prepared to say, that if the property of the Church of Ireland were placed on a secure basis, and a standard fixed for the franchise, independently of the oath of the voter, then I should desire to see those constantly recurring and irritating Irish discussions brought to an end, and the three great Irish questions which they involve, safely, satisfactorily, and finally adjusted." These sentiments he had given utterance to on the 5th of last December, and the very question now was, would the noble Lord, so far as he was concerned, allow one of these great questions—namely, the Irish tithe question, to be "satisfactorily and finally adjusted!" The noble Lord, by his resolution, said not. On the 2d of February, the noble Lord moved the second reading of the Municipal Bill, without any opposition from him, he stating that he deferred expressing his opinion to that stage of the measure upon which the discussion and the division had been usually taken, and the noble Lord, of his own accord, deferred the Committee to a day near the Easter recess. On Friday, the 23d of March, the noble Lord gave a formal and pompous notice, that he Would on the Monday following, ask the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, a question, as to the course he meant to pursue, with respect to the Irish Municipal Bill. That question he accordingly put, and the right hon. Baronet answered the question by asking another. The charge of the noble Lord was, that the appropriation clause was altogether kept out of sight, until within the last four nights. But on the noble Lord's question being put, his (Mr. Shaw's) right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth, replied, that it was unusual for the leader of the Government to ask a question of the leader of the Opposition, as to the course he meant to pursue, but he could give no answer to the noble Lord's question on Irish Municipal Corporations, until the noble Lord stated what he meant to do with the appropriation clause, in the measure to be introduced respecting Irish tithes. Was that keeping the noble Lord in the dark? Was that taking an advantage of him? Did that look like entrapping him? Could he support his charge after that? Had the noble Lord, in short, any ground whatever to stand on? But what did the noble Lord do then? He then commenced that system of mystification which had been acted on ever since. He gave notice for the introduction of the resolutions in question. They were printed—it was then the 28th of March—and from that day until the present, no man in the House, or out of the House, could tell what they meant, or what was their purport. The right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, added, that if the noble Lord did not give the House some explanation of his intentions, in respect to the appropriation clause in the measure on Irish tithes, he should move the postponement of the question. The noble Lord well knew the inconvenience to which the adoption of such a course would subject him. Easter was then near at hand, and he wisely and prudently put off the consideration of the question respecting corporations in Ireland to a future period. That was the fraud—that was the plain statement of the trap into which the noble Lord said he had been decoyed. The noble Lord had said, that in future, when his side of the House made professions, he would not believe them. The noble Lord would do as he thought best in that respect, and they, no doubt, would try to console themselves, as well as they could, with the consciousness of their innocence of any such charge. But when the noble Lord set about proclaiming to the country that, in making a fair and honourable proffer, the Duke of Wellington meant only to lay snares for him, all he (Mr. Shaw) could say on the subject was, that there was no man in England—no man in Europe—nay, no man in the whole civilized world, who would be found to believe him. An hon. Member opposite had charged his hon. Friend, the Member for North Devon, with having introduced this subject as a history of Cock Robin, and made it his hobby; but if strict justice had been done, he should have stated, that it was the noble Lord he supported who rode it as a hobby. And if any one killed Cock Robin it was certainly the noble Lord on the other side of the House, who, in the debate of last night, described himself as infelix puer. He it was that unhorsed the noble Lord, his colleague, and not his hon. Friend. When the noble Lord, the Secretary of State, declared that he still adhered to the resolution, the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, announced that it was abandoned; and after all the resolutions, counter resolutions, and speeches avowing and disavowing the appropriation clause from the other side, the mystification at last was worse than at first. No human being could tell whether the Government meant to embody it in their resolutions or not. And the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, consistently with the policy of the Government of which he was a Member, blew hot for one side while he blew cold for the other; for while he announced the abandonment of the appropriation clause in the Irish tithe resolutions, to conciliate that side of the House, and to neutralize the effect of that announcement upon his restless and troublesome, though necessary, supporters who sat on his right, the noble Lord denounced the Church in Ireland as a badge of conquest, as inflicted without reason or truth by the force of a strong arm only on a vanquished people. Such premises could indeed lead to no other conclusion than that its overthrow was desirable in the mind of the noble Lord; and was that language befitting the leading Member of the Irish Government in that House, in respect of a branch of the Established Church of the United Kingdom? Could it tend to promote the object the noble Lord professed of conciliating the friends of the Church in Ireland? or did it not rather prove, that the relation in which the noble Lord stood to that Church was, that he was "willing to wound but yet afraid to strike it?" The noble Lord said, the object of his hon. Friend (Sir T. Acland) and the present motion was the exposure and humiliation of the Government. He (Mr. Shaw) thought, if that only were the object, it would have been sufficiently accomplished by the acknowledgement of the noble Lord, that the Government was ready virtually to abandon the appropriation principle, although in direct violation of their own recorded sentiments. He disclaimed that object, his desire was to remove that which must operate practically as a bar to the satisfactory and final settlement of the tithe question. Let the Government, then, remove from the journals of the House an abstract resolution which had already served its purpose. Its continuance was not only useless by the admission of its movers, but in practical effect it must be mischievous. He (Mr. Shaw) would then enter upon the tithe resolutions, and give his best assistance to promote their speedy and permanent settlement upon fair and equitable terms; and in that case he would also consider himself bound to act in the same spirit with reference to the Irish municipal question, although not in any degree committed to the particular bill then before the House. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member (Mr. O'Connell) cheered; but he was not in the habit of making statements merely to serve the present occasion, and therefore he wished to guard himself from the possibility of being supposed to be pledged to the particular measure of corporate reform brought forward by the Government, while in the case he had put, he would consider himself bound to act up to the spirit of the declaration made by the Duke of Wellington. If the Government, on the contrary, refused that fair and reasonable proposition, then they must bear the responsibility; and they could not expect, that, in deference to their wishes, the great and powerful party with which he had the honour to act would consent to compromise a principle which they always had, and he trusted ever would, hold sacred.

Mr. O'Connell

spoke to the following effect:—I can safely promise the House that if they extend me their patience I will not trespass long upon their attention. I rise after the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but not by reason of anything he has said—post hunc, sed non propter cum. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is singularly liberal in his advances. He offers the noble Lord, that if the noble Lord will consent to do nothing, he will help him. These are the terms of the proffered holy alliance. These are the terms on which the noble Lord may ensure the assistance of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. As to the rest of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, it was divided into two unequal parts, both of which, however, had equally little to do with the subject before us. The first part referred to resolutions which are not under discussion at the present time; the second contained the history of what was said and done on one side of the House, and what was said and done on the other side of the House, on an occasion some time gone by having no bearing on the present discussion, and just as interesting to us as the history of Cock Robin, which has been much spoken of to-night, or, if the noble Member for Marylebone prefer the comparison, as the life and adventures of Tom Murphy. The noble Lord near me has asked the House to go into Committee, in order to consider the details of this subject. The right hon. Gentleman might just as well have favoured us with his speech in Committee, but as it is, I trust he will give us the benefit of the instalment. The question, however, before us is, whether we shall rescind the resolutions of 1835 or not; this is, I say, the only question before us apparently; but what is the real question? The real question is, and it is vain for shallow hypocrisy to deny it, the real question is how shall Ireland be governed. Yes, disguise it as you will, put it as you will, under cover of your love for Protestantism and your abhorrence of Popery, this is the question; this is the question which is now under discussion, and which has been under discussion for the last seven hundred years. [Laughter, "Oh! Oh!"] Yes, you may affect to laugh and sneer, I make no blunder about the matter. I know as well as you that Protestantism was not your war-cry seven hundred years ago, as it is now; but I say that for seven hundred years back the question has been how dominant England shall treat subject and oppressed Ireland. This is the only question, and this is the real question between you, the Tories, and the Whigs, at least as far as professions go, for most of you profess in other matters nearly the same principles as the Whigs: the only difference is in carrying these principles into effect. But the real great question ever is, how shall Ireland be governed—shall she be governed by a section ["Hear, hear]. Oh, I thank you for that cheer ["Shouts."] Yes, shout as you will; I care not for the shouts of an insolent and despicable domination ["Uproar which drowned the hon. and learned Gentleman's voice, till the Speaker succeeded in restoring partial order."] Oh, Sir, (continued the hon. and learned Gentleman) let them shout; 'tis a senseless yell ["continued uproar,"]—it speaks the base spirit of party. ["Continued uproar which prevented the hon. and learned Member from being more than partially heard."] You may sneer at me if you please. I speak the voice of seven millions. Why should not the son of Grattan say to you that which he has told you ["Order."] The English people are aware of your conduct—they know what you have done amongst them of late in order that you may command us hereafter. You have carried bribery further than it ever was carried before; you have gained your increase of strength by it. Never was there more extensive bribery than that which you have practised. Yes, you have practised it, and the highest amongst you have shrunk from investigation ["Cheers, question."] If the hon. Gentleman who cries question wishes to know what it is, I tell him it is as to the mode of governing Ireland—for it is impossible to think, that such a Paltry attempt as that which is included in the motion of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon can be the mode or the means of inducing us to wander from that which is the real question between us. Why, let me read to you what is the question; whether you will rescind this resolution is the nominal question; but in reality the question is, by what mode you mean to govern Ireland. Before I read the resolution let me remind you that not only the people of England, and the people of Scotland, and the people of Ireland, but the inhabitants of Europe are attending to the debates of this House, and the questions which you have reserved for your determination. From the camp of Don Carlos to the throne of Nicholas, they are attending to your proceedings; the world is listening to you; and do you think that they will not look upon you with contempt if they find that you permit paltry party spirit to enter into your deliberations and bearing upon your decisions by which you will distinguish one nation from the other, and make those whose powers ought to be united, consolidated and identified with each other, a divided, and a disunited people? But what is your resolution that you want to rescind? This is the resolution:—"That any surplus revenue of the present Church Establishment in Ireland not required for the spiritual care of its members——"The scope and object of the resolution, then are these:—to provide for the spiritual care of the members of the estab- lished Church. You say, then, that the money is not enough. This is what is said by the hon. Member for Donegal, who has highly praised the Establishment; but, then, how is this difficulty met as to the money being applied to political objects? It is declared that the surplus revenue "shall be applied to the moral and religious education of all classes of the people, without distinction of religious persuasion." Now there is the resolution that is so terrific. That it is which is to come between us and justice—that it is which is to stop us—that it is which is so monstrous, which is so frightful, that the reverend clergymen of the Church of Ireland declare that they are afraid the funds of the Church will be exhausted, that they never will be sufficient for all which the wants of the Protestants of Ireland may require. They are for the spiritual wants of the Protestants being supplied, and they declare that when they are supplied the surplus should not be employed in any other way. How, not employed in instruction—not employed in giving a moral and religious education to the people? Remember, it is for the moral and religious education of the people. Oh, you tell us it is not right to employ it in that manner. Why, how many of you are there who go about amongst us, bow many of your missionaries are there amongst us, who tell us, that it is the benefit of education and the advantages of intelligence that are wanting to us to induce us to become Protestants? If you believe yourselves, then, why not act upon the resolution? You tell the world we want education, and you show the world you do not believe what you say. You prove to the world that you do not rely upon the Bible, but upon the strength of your party. You prove to the world that the only riches of the Church that you value are those which you can bring with you in Judas's scrip. If we are to be benefitted by education—if we are to be made Protestants by education—then why not allow us to be educated. If you believe, that Protestantism is the religion that will be preferred by educated men, then why have you such a horror of the surplus fund of the Church being devoted to that education which you say is the best method for making men Protestants. But then you may tell us, that though Protestantism may increase as education is acquired, yet it may happen that giving the surplus to education may not allow hereafter enough for the spiritual wants of Protestantism. What in such a case does the resolution provide? It says, "providing for the resumption of such surplus, or of any such part of it as may be required by an increase in the number of the members of the Established Church." And yet that is the resolution which you want to rescind. That is the resolution which has so frightened the parsons of Devonshire that they have put forward their Member to move for its being expunged from the journals of this House. This, then, is the awful, this the dreadful, resolution! Oh! how I rejoice that in the struggle in which my country is engaged, and in which you are combined against her, that you stand before the world the parties to such an absurd, such a contemptible, and such an unjust resistance to her rights—that you, despite of the scorns and defiance, of the sneers of mankind, should stand thus before civilised Europe? That is the proposition you oppose, and that proposition goes no further than this—that the surplus is to be applied to the purposes of education, which education you yourselves say will make men Protestants; and then if, in consequence of education, more Protestant clergymen are to be required, then the very resolution you want to rescind, allows the resumption of the Surplus for all the purposes required by an increased number of Protestants. You object to that. The shout you gave awhile ago was, indeed, a fitting honour for the hon. Baronet—not on account of his speech; for never in all my life did I hear anything more harmless than that was. Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House have given him credit for purity of intentions—they have spoken of the purity of his motives. Really, Sir, when there is a rule of the House that no one Member is to impute bad motives to another, no matter how bad his acts may be, I do think it ought not to be suffered to impute good motives to any man who has made a bad motion with impunity. And yet that is the position of the hon. Baronet. He has brought forward an unjust, an unfair, and an absurd motion, and then we are told of his good intentions. Now, if any man were to tell us, that the hon. Baronet was actuated by a desire of notoriety, that he was instigated by vanity, and that he was carried by the blast of Conservatism into a region which he never otherwise would have reached—oh! then the delicate and fastidious would be shocked, and it would be said you are not at liberty to impute bad motives, nor to accuse another of having bad intentions. The hon. Baronet has made a bad motion with good intentions; but did the hon. Baronet never hear of the Dutch proverb, which declares that a very bad place "is paved with good intentions?" I impute no motives to the hon. Baronet, and as far as Parliamentary language will allow me to go, I say, that I "laugh to scorn" any one who can say, that a man can come forward in this House and propose to expunge the resolution which I have now read, and that in doing so he can be animated with good intentions. But after him came the hon. Baronet, the Member for Warwickshire, who told us, that it was with delight he seized the opportunity of seconding the motion for expunging these resolutions. If that delighted him, I must say, that it is very easy to please him. He said he would not consent to "give to the enemies of the Church, the property of the friends of the Church." Will he tell me whose property it is? Will he also answer me another question, and tell me whose property it was? I have heard of one gallant Officer on the opposite benches, the hon. Member for Donegal, who endowed a Church in Ireland. I do not at all doubt it, for I can easily credit the liberality and piety of the hon. and gallant Member in this respect; but then, I ask, with that single exception, whose property was that of the present Church? Was it not the property of the Roman Catholics, and was it not given for the purpose of having prayers for the dead, for the celebration of masses, for the invocation of saints, and for the maintenance of such other "superstitious and damnable doctrines?" Yes, you thought the doctrine was bad; but then, you said, "the money is good,"—and, accordingly, you protested against the doctrine, whilst you took care anxiously to clasp the money to your hearts. And, having done this, you now refuse to do justice, under the paltry pretence of religion. It is a paltry and a hollow hypocrisy. There is a kind of morbid humanity abroad; it is to be found amongst men who affect philanthropy—who are tenderly alive to all the evils which may be endured by those who are not of an agreeable colour, and who are to be found in distant regions: they are men who overflow with the milk of human kindness for black men and women, but who can with patience, with equanimity, and even with approbation, look on, and see all the injuries you inflict upon Irishmen, and all the injustice you do to Ireland. I wish the Irish were negroes, and then we should have an advocate in the hon. Baronet. This erratic humanity wanders beyond the ocean, and visits the hot islands of the West Indies, and thus having discharged the duties of kindliness there, it returns burning and desolating, to treat with indignity, and to trample upon the people of Ireland as enemies. The hon. Baronet has used the words, "he would not allow the property of friends to be given to enemies." Is it to pay the priesthood of the people that the property of the Church is sought to be applied? No; for we, true to our principles, and finding the Catholic religion to prosper unconnected with the State, would not allow it to be contaminated by Mammon, and will only have it sustained as it has flourished, upon the voluntary contributions of its own Members. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock, who is not now in his place, but I suppose he is in the House, was kind enough to speak upon that side of the House also, and he, with a dexterity which was more to be admired than his candour, read half a sentence of mine, and took particular care to omit the other half. I alluded to the resolutions, and observed, that as Protestantism diminished, the contributions to the purposes of the State would be increased, and I also showed, that the expenditure for the purposes of Protestantism, would be enlarged with the increase of Protestantism. Was it fair, then, in this House to quote the first part of the sentence, and to omit the other part. The hon. Member for Pontefract is not here, and I am, therefore, willing to pass by the philippic he was pleased to make on her Majesty's Ministers. He told us, indeed, of "a cat lapping milk." But I shall not follow him; I shall only give him one line of poetry for his "cat lapping:— The cat may mew, the dog will have his day. But the real point to be decided is this—whether you are disposed to make the Union permanent or not. My hon. Friend, the hon. Baronet, the Member for Drogheda, told you that which you would not believe me if I told you, but can you misbelieve him? He told you how deeply the people of Ireland feel as to the contest which is now going on. We may say, we are eight millions. I say, you may take the whole of the Protestants of Ireland, and it would be hard, indeed, to take them from the people of Ireland, for I am at this moment surrounded by Protestant friends who are ardent in the cause of Ireland; but, if I give you all, you will have a million and a half, including the Presbyterians, who do not love tithes. Taking, then, man for man, woman for woman, and child for child, there is a balance in our favour of five millions. You have a million and a half—we have six millions and a half; deduct the million and a half, and then you find a clear balance of five millions. "It is the total of the whole." For my own part, I never have disguised my opinion. I always have said, that a nation of eight millions was too numerous, if they had common sense, to permit themselves to be treated as a province. We were not treated as a province for near 700 years, though we were misgoverned; and for the last twenty-five years of her independence, Ireland was rising in prosperity unexampled in the annals of any nation. This, too, was happening at the time when you were running a course of profligacy. You were then sending your troops to America; you attempted to trample upon its liberties; but, thanks to the patriotism and spirit of its sons, they met you in arms, they defeated you, and they established their independence. ["Question!"] It is a question of which you will hear more than once. But, then, you having fomented a rebellion in Ireland, you availed yourselves of the diminished strength of the people, and the distracted state of parties, and with 150,000 troops in the country you carried the Union. I am ready to consent that that Union may continue. ["Oh oh."] You may sneer at that declaration, and say that you do not value my consent; but then you sneered at America, and you got your answer. Let the hon. Baronet tell the people of Ireland he does not value their consent, but I tell him, that if the Conservative faction, or the Conservative party, trample without hope of redress upon the people of Ireland, he may find that, though victory may not be inscribed upon the banners of the Irish, they never will consent to lie down degraded and willing slaves. The Union should be one in which there ought to be no distinction between Yorkshire and Carlow—between Waterford and Cumberland; there ought to be an identity of laws, an identity of institutions, and an identity of liberties. It may be said, that I push the argument too far, when I made use of the word identity; for the Church of the State in England, is the Church of the majority. I find, that in England there are twelve thousand places of worship connected with the Established Church, and that the Dissenters have eight thousand meeting houses. The religion, then, of the majority of the people of England is that professed by the Church of the State. In Scotland, the religion of the people is recognised as the national religion. In Ireland, you have trampled upon the religion of the people, and you perpetrated your tyranny in the worst form, and in the most odious shape, until at length the people of Ireland spoke to you in a voice too loud not to be heard, and too unanimous to be misunderstood, and you found yourselves unable to continue them in their former state of degradation. In Scotland, the people turned out upon the mountain side—they met you in battle, and, having defeated you, you were obliged to yield in Scotland. In despite of you, there the Church adopted by the State, was the Church of the people. What, then, should be the effect of the Union? That the Church of the people should be the Church of the State. There is no principle, I mean no political principle, to prevent it; but there is a principle upon our part which must for ever prevent such an occurrence taking place in Ireland. It is this—that we are thoroughly convinced that it would be the surest mode of decatholicising Ireland. We believe, that tainting our Church with tithes, and giving temporalities to it, would degrade it in the affections of the people of Ireland. Offers have been made before to the clergy of Ireland, and they have been rejected—the offer of any connection with the State will ever be rejected. But, then, treating Ireland as you do upon this very question, you tell her that there is no Union with England. These resolutions do not go far enough. I admit it. But, then, I am ready to accede to these resolutions. My disposition is for an amicable settlement. The Protestant landlords are now beginning to feel the weight of tithes equally with the Catholics. From the county of Cork we perceive vast numbers of petitions proceeding from all classes of politicians. The Conservative landlords are becoming heartily sick of the payment of tithes. They may call it "rent," but the tenant understands it as an additional burden to his rent. If the tenant appeal to the agent for distraining for rent before the man is prepared to pay it, the agent tells him that the clergyman of the parish is pressing the landlord for his tithes, and he is obliged to collect his rent sooner than otherwise it should be done, for the purpose of paying the clergyman's demand; and thus it is, that though you may call it rent, the people feel it to be tithes. The Protestant landlords, and even many of the Protestant clergymen, are calling for a settlement of the question. Even within the last week the letter of Archdeacon Hoare has been published, in which he calls upon his brother clergymen to accept the admirable terms offered by the Queen's Government. Will it not be allowed to accept these terms? It is true, that here Protestantism is mixed up with politics, and the interests of religion are apt to be overlooked in the advantages of party. Piety is combined with the love of place, and the tranquillity of Ireland neglected for the hope of the enjoyment of office. The Protestant gentry, as well as the people of Ireland, call for conciliation now. Let, then, Ireland be now tranquillized; and, as far as an humble individual can do, I have set the example already, and I am ready to follow it up. I have paid my tithes: I did not pay them for five years; I had four persons attacking me at once. They have now been paid, because I wished to set the example of being prepared for an amicable settlement. But then the hon. Baronet will not allow that; his "good intentions" will prevent it, and induce him to rescind a resolution to which common sense cannot object, but to which political Protestantism can offer some opposition. We want equality with you, and you will not permit us to have it. You gave us a Reform Bill—it was a stingy and despicable Reform Bill.—Why? Because you would not trust us. Your political Protestantism again met us. We ought to have had the same franchises which you enjoy. We were entitled to them by the Union. Why not give us an equality of civil rights? Political Protestantism could not permit us to have them. England has Municipal Reform; Scotland has Municipal Reform, but Ireland has not obtained Corporation Reform. Why? your political Protestantism again. How wisely do you preach Protestantism in Ireland! You make it the pretext for depriving us of every species of equality with yourselves, and then, having rendered it odious, you send forth your missionaries to preach it amongst the people whom you have made its victims. It is despotism aided by hypocrisy, and yet you proclaim an Union, a Legislative Union, between subjects of the same realm. You may do so, but you will be laughed at and scorned. I am making an experiment amongst you, and frankly and fairly I tell you, I am convinced you will not do us justice. What prospect is there of it, when I find that, owing to the enormous bribery practised by you amongst the freemen, you have got such numbers into the Commons, that the Lords think nothing of a majority of this House. It is of no avail for her Majesty's Ministers to bring in useful measures; we hear them taunted with the little they have done. Why, you won't let them do what they would. First, you taunted them with not doing more, and then, when they propose to proceed, you place yourselves in opposition to them, and tell them that there is another place. We know that there is another place. And we know that it needs only to be said, that it is intended to extend political advantages to the people of Ireland to ensure a veto being pronounced against the proposition. This is your triumph; yours is the power to insult; yours is the authority to oppress; you glorify yourselves in your haughty station; and while you pretend you wish us justice, you exert all the powers you possess to prevent the identification of our rights and liberties with yours. I did not intend to occupy the House half so long. The question is simply this—are you disposed to do justice to Ireland? You make us an offer; you say you are disposed to go into the consideration of the resolutions with good temper, but first the appropriation principle must be struck out. The meaning of that is plain: "Walk under the yoke, good gentlemen. Make the best of your way to the common place of execution—walk under it—bow your heads to it—and then, forsooth, when you have rendered yourselves as contemptible as degradation can make you, when you have satisfied us of your unmanliness and worthlessness, then we will consider you fit objects of conciliation, and entitled to participate with us in the enjoyment of rational liberty." That is precisely what the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire promised us; that is the way in which the noble Lord gave us to understand we might excite his good temper, and ensure to ourselves his countenance and all that is genial and winning about it. The hon. and learned Recorder also, protesting that he never made speeches as a judicial partisan, except at the monthly meetings of those liberal and enlightened men, the corporation of Dublin, told us what mighty things we might expect at his hands if we would but submit to this degradation. Do the hon. Gentlemen opposite taunt her Majesty's Government with not having carried this resolution into effect? Surely it is we who ought to complain of that. We are the parties who are entitled to ask why it has been allowed to slumber? No attempt, however, has been made to act upon it; and now the hon. Gentlemen opposite deem even the sound of it too much for our Irish ears. Its being allowed to remain upon the books is too great a submission to the wishes and feelings of the people of Ireland; and, consequently, one hon. Baronet moves, and another hon. Baronet seconds, both with the best intentions, a motion to obliterate it from the Parliamentary records. Heaven preserve us from your English Baronets. They are the oddest cattle I ever heard of. I find them voting for the principle of appropriation at one time, and calling for its condemnation at another. The hon. Baronet who seconded this motion has given a most unpleasant, I will call it a most awful, turn to the debate; it was in his speech that for the first time the distinctive appellations of religion were ever given to any parties in this House. He said, "the Whigs in 1688 had driven away a Catholic king, and he, in 1838, would assist in driving a Catholic Opposition from the Senate." If this be the way in which the hon. Baronet pleases to talk of the Catholic party in this House, I beg to tell him that we have to the full as good a right to be here as he has—[Sir E. Wilmot had spoken of Catholic dominion]. The newspaper reports correspond with the note I took at the time, but I am content to believe, that Catholic dominion was the phrase used by the hon. Baronet. There is no great difference between the two. What do we demand—what do we wish? We wish this resolution to remain on your books, and then the hon. Baronet talks of Catholic dominion; for I must take him to have meant dominion, if he says so. Now, let me ask, is not this the first time the distinction of religious parties has been introduced into this House? I assure the hon. Baronet that I am as little disposed to Protestant as he is to Catholic dominion; I beg to tell him more, that if Catholic dominion diminished his rights as a Protestant, there is not a man in existence who would more zealously and actively exert himself to destroy it than I would. At the same time the hon. Baronet made that distinction, the hon. Member for Malton, who is a Protestant, the hon. Member for Armagh, who has belonged to the Presbyterian Church for twenty-five years, and another hon. Member, who is a dissenter of one of the persuasions, sat around me; and we four, each differing from the other in our religious opinions, joined in one expression of abhorrence at such a distinction being introduced amongst us. Shall we have polemical discussions in this House? I beg the hon. Baronet to understand that I am quite ready to meet him for any such encounter, but not here. I am as prepared and as disposed as he can be to give reasons for the hope that is in me; but we sit here as the representatives of the people, and as a representative of the Irish people, I call on you to remember that your Union is one of parchment: it may be one of cobweb, and it may be one of adamant, but the latter it will not be, unless you do justice to Ireland.

Sir R. Peel

said, if the hon. and learned Gentleman has exceeded the limits which he prescribed for himself at the commencement of his speech, I am the last man that should be disposed to regret the superfluity, because if I wanted a speech to justify the course of my hon Friend—if I wanted a speech to show, that it is desirable we should know the principle on which her Majesty's Government mean to proceed—it would be the speech which we have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. and learned Gentleman says, that we propose to rescind a certain resolution which he read. The effect of that resolution was to appropriate a certain surplus of the Irish Church property to the education of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, without reference to their religious denomination. The hon. and learned Gentleman says, that because we propose to rescind that resolution, we must intend to govern Ireland through the medium of hardships and coercion. Then I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman, what does he think of those who practically abandon the resolution? If it be so great a crime to explain to the people of Ireland and to the people of England what are your real intentions—if it be so great a crime to ask you to efface from the records of Parliament the principle which would apply a surplus of Church property to education not connected with the Protestant faith—let me ask the hon. and learned Gentleman how he justifies it to himself to give his assent to resolutions which we are told do not involve the principle? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman maintain that those resolutions do involve the principle? Do they involve the principle or do they not? This is a final settlement—this, we are told, is to be a satisfactory settlement. Then, I ask, do the resolutions which we are asked to assent to, involve the principle of the resolutions of 1835 or not? If not, how does the hon. and learned Gentleman reconcile it to himself to give them his support? If they do, how does he reconcile his construction of them with the construction put on them by the noble Lord the secretary of Ireland, and, as it appears, also by the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. In the latter case, which authority are we to believe? And if a doubt exist between the Government and the hon. and learned Gentleman, who on this subject has such immense influence and authority—if we show this, do we not furnish a conclusive reason why we should have all vagueness and ambiguity cleared up, that we may come to a perfect understanding of the principle on which we are proceeding? I would ask further, can hon. Gentlemen be surprised at the anxiety and doubt that pervade the Protestant minds in Ireland when they receive the declarations that are made? The hon. Gentleman says, he gives his assent to the resolutions on this ground. He thinks, then, following up his own principles, that you ought to have the religion of the majority established in Ireland. As you have the religion of the majority in England established, and as you have the religion of the majority in Scotland established, so, says the hon. Gentleman, according to his principles, you ought to have in Ireland the religion of the majority established. And it is worthy of observation, that while the hon. Gentleman professes peace, and intimates that, after refusing the payment of tithes for five years, he is now setting a different example—while he refers us to the precepts of christianity, and professes everything that is mild and conciliatory, he always reminds us, as he has done this night, that the Scotch took to the hill side with their broad sword—and that in Scotland the religion is that of the majority. But, says the hon. Gentleman, "though I consider this doctrine sound and conclusive, yet I will not push it to its practical results "—and this is the security we have. "I don't ask you, says the hon. and learned Member, to establish the religion of the majority in Ireland, because we utterly repudiate any connection with the State. We are so satisfied, that a participation in any portion of the Church property would so desecrate our faith as to deprive it of its influence, that we cannot consent under the circumstances to receive a portion of that property, and we, therefore, choose not to push to their legitimate conclusions our arguments with regard to the principles." The hon. Gentleman is looking with some anxiety for the quotation which he sees I am about to make. I am not surprised at it when I see what security there is in the abstinence of the Irish people. I have said he rests his own forbearance on the ground that he repudiates any participation in Church property; but it was to him that the people of Ireland gave this assurance, as a condition of the establishment of tranquillity in that country. "Would you tranquillise Ireland, follow up this plan." Now, what plan? Of course you would suppose a plan in utter repudiation of any connection with or participation in Church property. Quite the reverse. "Follow up this plan; give the glebes to the value of 300l. per annum as the pay of the clergy of the great and overwhelming majority of the people of that country." Gentlemen of property and influence may refuse to pay tithes for five years; but there is one species of property that is staple that is exempt from spoliation, that a refusal to pay tithes cannot effect, viz, the glebes in the possession of the Church. Leave the Church nominally in possession of the tithes which may be withheld by conspiracy and the advice of subtle men? but if you wish to establish tranquillity follow up this plan; leave the tithes with the Protestant Church, but take the glebes for the Catholic. The hon. Gentleman appealed to the Act of Union; he says he holds by the Act of Union, and wishes to give that national compact a fair trial. He concludes that the Act of Union establishes the equality of civil rights—Good. Does it nothing more? Was it not one condition of the Act of Union that the Protestant Church in Ireland should be maintained unimpaired. And was not that a fundamental condition? I ask, then, is it fair of the hon. Gentleman to declare his adherence to that part of the Act of Union which favours his views, but to deny its validity in matters with which his views do not accord? In order to form a correct judgment of the nature of the proposition made by my hon. Friend, and of the justice of those accusations which have been preferred against him and others by the noble Lord, it is necessary for me to take a short review of what has taken place with respect to this question. There are many hon. Gentlemen from whose minds the facts may have been obliterated by the public events that have since transpired, and there are also many who not having been in the last Parliament, may not have watched the progress of the question so as to be thoroughly acquainted with it. I consider it necessary, therefore, that I should preface my answer to the noble Lord by shortly reverting to what has transpired on this subject. I came into office at the latter end of the year 1834, and I was at that time sincerely desirous of effecting a settlement of this tithe question. Such was my anxiety that I exposed myself to a charge of plagiarism by adopting the principles of the former Government. The charge was, that I had taken up the bill brought in by his Majesty's preceding Government. I, however, brought in that measure which proposed a deduction from the incomes of the clergy to the amount of twenty-five per cent., and the reduction of the tithe composition to a rent charge. We professed a desire to correct any abuse in the Protestant Church, to reduce those incomes that were excessive, and to require duties from those who did not perform any. Was I allowed to proceed with that measure, the principle and details of which were taken from the bill of the hon. Gentleman opposite? No, I was met by a preliminary objection; I was told, that I should not proceed practically with the consideration of the measure, because it was necessary to pass a resolution embodying in it principles which were considered indispensable to the settlement of the tithe question. I told the noble Lord that he would have the opportunity of his triumph over me equally by bringing in a practical measure, but I deprecated the introduction of a principle in a resolution which would have a tendency to bind Parliament hereafter. I said, "bring in your own measure, adopt your own principle, if it is a good one, and capable of practical developement, and if your reasons prevail, your success shall be equally decisive of my fate." Not content with that, however, the principle was pressed which declared, that if there were a surplus, it should be applied to purposes of education; and this was superadded, that at no time could any settlement be satisfactory which did not embody that principle. Such a resolution was perfectly unnecessary. I foretold the consequences of its adoption. I told you that your triumph, as public men, would be of short duration. I did not mean official triumph; it is possible for men to be in office and not to be triumphant. No man is, perhaps, better entitled to lay down that maxim than myself. I asked you to avoid establishing a principle which, for all time to come, must preclude a compromise. I begged you to avoid deciding by a single vote so great a question. I warned you against a course which appeared to have the effect, though it had not really, of passing by the House of Lords. You persevered, though you knew that the success of a practical measure must be equally decisive of my fate; you persevered, and you said, "We will lay down for the guidance of public men and future Parliaments this principle, and they shall not approach the tithe question unless they adopt it." The hon. Gentleman opposite succeeded. I said then, as I say now, that I never would be a party to that principle. I will not consent to the alienation of the Church property from purposes strictly ecclesiastical, and rather than do so, I took the course which every honourable man would take under similar circumstances—I relinquished office. The hon. Gentlemen opposite brought forward their own measure in 1835. When they did so, I moved an amendment. We moved that the bill be separated into two, for the purpose of manifesting our adherence in opposition to our own principle. We moved, that the bill be separated into two, for the purpose of establishing a rent-charge in lieu of tithe composition, and effecting the necessary reforms in the Church, being of opinion that the diverting any surplus to purposes of education would be properly the subject of a separate bill. How were we met when we made this proposition? And now I want to know who were the real parties who obstructed the settlement of this question. As I said before, when we attempted to bring this question to a satisfactory conclusion by placing it on that footing upon which it could be brought under practical consideration, we were met by this resolution, upon which the com- pact alliance was formed. And upon this resolution we went out. And when we proposed the separation of the two measures, how were we met? Why, the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is now taking notes—thus replied, and observed that we attempted to lay down no abstract principle of our own; we did not meet the proposition of the noble Lord by the principle that Church property should stand devoted to spiritual purposes only; we merely said, let us have a separate bill. How were we met? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said— The hon. Baronet now called on the House to sever the two propositions, either for no purpose at all, or for the purpose of passing that portion of the bill relating to the concession of the million and the settlement of the tithe question, and of throwing out the other portion of the measure relating to appropriation. If the right hon. Gentleman wished the house to retrace its steps, would it not, then, have been much more decent if the right hon. Gentleman had come down and asked them to rescind the resolution they had sanctioned in so many forms. The more straightforward course, added the right hon. Gentleman, would have been for the House to have been called on to rescind its former resolution; and, if any hon. Gentleman thinks he can vote for this resolution without rescinding the former vote, let him recollect the cheers with which the announcement was received; that it was intended to negative one part of this bill and to carry the other part. I am prepared to argue the case when we go into the Committee after having negatived this resolution, but I will not allow what was a Parliamentary minority on a former occasion to convert itself into a majority by a little sleight of hand and legerdemain dexterity, such as moving a resolution which is apparently one thing, though most unquestionably it means another."^* Thus, when we propose the particular course that would have avoided the difficulty, we are told that we are not candid and straightforward. And when we now come with a proposition to rescind the resolution, when we adopt the very suggestion that was offered to us, we are told that we may be very candid and straightforward, but we are making you pass under a disgraceful and dishonourable yoke, and your flesh and blood revolt against it. Thus passed 1835. In 1836, the question was again brought forward. My noble ^* Hansard (third series) vol. xxix. Pp. 840, 842. Friend (Lord Francis Egerton) asked for leave to bring in a bill embodying your own principles, and, at the same time, asked the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) to postpone his bill then before the House. "No," said the noble Lord, "I will not postpone my measure." My noble Friend then moved his bill as an amendment, and again it was rejected. The noble Lord's bill was sent to the House of Lords, that is the bill passed by the noble Lord in 1836. The House of Lords passed the bill, reducing the composition to a rent charge by twenty-five per cent, making reforms in the Church, but not embodying the principle of appropriation. I asked the noble Lord to take the amendments into consideration. The noble Lord refused to take them into consideration, because they did not adopt the principle of the resolution; and the noble Lord said, that if this House entered upon a consideration of the bill as sent by the House of Lords, it would be a recantation of their former resolution, and thus this bill was also lost. The year 1836, therefore, passed with an ineffectual attempt to bring this question to a settlement; 1837 came, and now I approach that part of the noble Lord's speech in which he made use of this language, that attempts had been made to deceive him by the declarations put forward by us, and that hereafter he would consider such declarations as nothing more than tricks and stratagems. I must beg leave to say, that whilst I have been in opposition. I have refused to have any secret negotiation. I have held no communications, and this not from any personal disrespect towards those who differ from me, but because I think it naturally shakes the confidence of a party in those in whom they place confidence. Whatever has passed upon this or upon any other occasion has passed in the face of day, and in this House, and therefore in the most peremptory terms, as peremptory as is consistent with the courtesy of Parliamentary usage, I deny that the noble Lord has been deceived. I will first refer to what passed at the close of the last Session of Parliament with respect to the Irish Tithe Bill. That bill made no progress in this House, on account of circumstances for which Government were not responsible, the lamented death of his late Majesty. A debate arose upon the Municipal Corporation Bill for Ireland. The question between us is this—Has the noble Lord ever had the slightest ground for be- lieving, that I had relaxed in my oposition to the principle of the resolution of 1835? Has any act or declaration of mine ever entitled the noble Lord to believe, that I would be a party to any settlement of the Irish tithe-question, which should involve directly or indirectly the principle of appropriation? I peremptorily deny it. The noble Lord made this declaration—"That no false delicacy, no false pride, or improper fear of reproach, would induce him obstinately to adhere to anything that heretofore had passed." Do I taunt the noble Lord with this declaration? Do I turn round and say, "You forced me out of office upon this question, and now you apologise, and recant your former declaration?" No: for my part I declare, though that resolution of 1835 was fatal to my Government, not a word of taunt should the noble Lord have heard from me on this subject; and if the noble Lord will now adopt that course, if he will consent to abandon the resolution, if the noble Lord will proceed to the consideration of the question with a view to a final and satisfactory adjustment, that is the only way in which the question can now be satisfactorily settled. Do not let it remain suspended as at present. Do not let us aggravate the evil by discussions without any specific object. Do not let us vote upon a resolution which, whether it he adopted or abandoned, will be the cause of engendering bitterness in Ireland. The noble Lord and his colleagues know, that it is impossible to leave the question in its present state. This declaration I made last year upon the subject. This declaration I made in the seine Session in which my noble Friend declared, that he was desirous to see those great questions which divided the House on Irish matters brought to a satisfactory settlement, and that he would participate in all measures that would have that effect, but that he never would consent to a settlement of Irish tithes upon the principle of the appropriation of Church property to secular uses. This was what was said by my hon. Friend, who, I suppose, is also included in the reproach of the noble Lord—this was what he said at a later period, namely, on the 9th of June. And what course did we take upon the bill of last year? We supported the noble Lord's bill on the second reading; and so little desirous were we of offering a mere factious opposition to the bill, that when Mr. Sharman Crawford opposed the bill on the second reading, my hon. Friend and myself divided with Government against that hon. Member's motion. Although we thought that the bill contained a principle that was objectionable, what course did we take? We said, "There will be an opportunity in Committee to oppose the objectionable parts; do not therefore let us refuse our assent to the second reading." We consented to the second reading of the bill, although there were many, at least some, on the other side of the House, who opposed it. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Harvey) opposed it on the ground, that it did not go far enough, and that it did not give enough of Church property, but we declined to co-operate with those who sought to obstruct the measure of Government. What, then, was the language of my noble Friend that was calculated to deceive, and which entitled the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) to say, that he had been placed in a false position in consequence of tricks and stratagems? This was the language of my noble Friend (Lord Stanley): "However anxious I may be to see this measure carried, as the basis and ground-work of a great national settlement of the important questions which agitate the public mind, I should not discharge my bounden duty if I did not frankly declare, that no consideration whatever, with reference to this or any other bill—no asserted probability of a settlement—no profession of acquiescence in its provisions, will ever induce me to give my consent to the taxation of the clergy for this unjust and illegal purpose."^* What was the principle of the bill of 1837? It laid a tax of ten per cent. upon the clergy for the education of all classes of all religious denominations; and against that principle, which virtually contained the appropriation principle, I objected. But when was the language used which had deceived the noble Lord? Was it in the course of this Session? I have this year professed my desire to see the question settled, but I said without the abandonment of the appropriation principle no settlement could be satisfactory. I deeply regret the obstacles that have arisen in the way of the settlement of this question; I lament those divisions that exist in Ireland, sincerely, and more so than if they existed in England, because in the former they are more dangerous; but this is a great question of ^* See Hansard (Third Series), vol. xxxviii., p. 1377. principle, involving the permanent security of the Irish Church, and I repeat that I cannot consent to a settlement which shall devote any portion of Church property to secular uses. What I now contend for is, that I never led the noble Lord to believe that I would consent to a settlement upon, any other condition. The noble Lord intimated, that he had postponed the Irish Municipal Bill till after the Irish Tithe Bill at a request of mine, and that by that means he had been placed in a more unfavourable position. I deny the fact. The noble Lord gave a formal notice that he would ask a question of me, and he did ask that question late in March, but so little expectation had the noble Lord that I would make a compromise on the subject of the Municipal Corporations Bill, or any other Bill, that the question put by him was simply this—namely, if I would let him know if my noble Friend would make a motion as he had done last year, whether he intended to divide the Municipal Corporation Bill into two; and whether he intended to submit to the House a proposal for abolishing, but not reforming municipal corporations. The noble Lord was so completely in ignorance of the course we meant to pursue on this or any other measure, except so far as he could collect from our public declarations. The proposal of delay, therefore, was not made from me, but it originated in an unusual question being put by the leader of a Government to a Member in Opposition. After the noble Lord's formal notice, I said that I could not give any explanation as to my future course; but I begged leave to ask a question of the noble Lord respecting Irish tithes, and in asking that question I made use of this explanation. This was on the 27th of March last, before the recess. I made use of this explanation. I find entered on the journals of Parliament these resolutions and they may be considered as still remaining in force. [Question, question!] I did not seek this. The position in which I am placed is rather an unusual one. I am laying the foundation of an answer to the question of the noble Lord, on the answer to which his own reply would mainly depend. I find these resolutions on the journals of the House— That this House do resolve itself into a Committee, in order to consider the present state of the Church Establishment in Ireland, with a view to apply any surplus of its revenues, not required for the spiritual care of its members to the general education of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, without distinction of religious persuasion; and it is the opinion of this House that no measure on the subject of tithes can lead to a satisfactory and final adjustment that does not embody the principles contained in the foregoing resolutions. These resolutions were voted by a former House of Commons, at the instance of the noble Lord now the leader of the present House, and coupling them with the Speech from the Throne, entitled himself, I think, after the lapse of four months, to put this question to the noble Lord, "whether it is his intention to bring forward a measure on the subject of Irish tithes, and whether that measure will involve the principles contained in these resolutions." After the noble Lord had given his answer I stated: "There is a prospect, I trust, of coming to a settlement on the Irish Poor-law Bill; I for one, wish it may be possible to come to a settlement with respect to the Irish Corporations Bill, and the bill relating to the Irish Church—but I feel myself bound to what I always have said on the question, that a security for the Irish Church must be an essential condition of any such settlement."^* I must say, then, coupling what I said in 1837 and the declaration made by me in 1835, that I am not chargeable with making declarations from trick or stratagem, and that I have not placed the noble Lord, as a member of the Government, in an unfavourable position on this question. What is the course which the noble Lord has taken? What is the nature of his resolutions? I do not wish to reciprocate personal attacks upon the other side of the House, I will not bandy hard words with the noble Lord. I do not think it answers any purpose. I heard the speech of the noble Lord; I heard the temper of it with deep regret. It is in vain for the noble Lord to say, that we will not concur in a satisfactory settlement of this question, when, at the same time he is opposing insuperable obstacles to its settlement, by rousing every feeling of pride—by telling men like the Irish clergy, men who have been deprived of their tithe for the last four or five years, men who have submitted to poverty and oppression, and who now say they are ready to make further concessions for the sake of peace, provided you maintain the integrity of the establishment; by a Minister of the Crown telling such men, ^* Hansard, vol. xli, p. 1315, 1319. after such privations and such sufferings; that they set a price upon the value of peace, while they offer to give up fifteen per cent. of their income for the purpose of insuring peace in Ireland by telling these men, who have in many cases abandoned their just right, who have been deprived of their tithes, who have lived upon funds doled out by charity—that they are insensible to the peace of Ireland—that their constant anxiety and deep interest for the Establishment arise from mere mercenary motives—that they think more of their pockets than of the tranquillity and peace of the country—I say, Sir, making such charges against such men, places difficulties in the way of a settlement of this question so vast, that any authority or counsel of mine—if authority I have—must fail to produce a satisfactory settlement. Of all the ills that harass the distressed "Sure, the most bitter is a scornful jest. Then the noble Lord comes with this question, whether we are justified in moving to rescind these resolutions. I do not attempt to conceal, and if I did I could not, that it is difficult for a Government to consent to the formal rescinding of its own resolutions. I think, for the character and honour of public men of both sides, that the public should know what are the principles on which we proceed; and if I were to say that the rescinding of this resolution would not be a severe blow to the Government, I should be guilty of hypocrisy. But it was open to the noble Lord to have avoided this discussion. I say, on my own part, that if the noble Lord held this Session the language he held last Session, if he had come forward and said, "we will attempt the settlement of this great question of Irish tithes, in which Irish conflicts arise—we will propose a measure, and a reasonable measure, with respect to Irish tithes, and we will ask you to consent to an Irish corporation bill founded on the principle of popular election;" and if the noble Lord had said he would abandon the resolution of 1835, if the noble Lord had said he would not shrink from the unpopularity of that course, if he had proposed a settlement on this footing, and said, that he would not guarantee that the arrangement should be final against future attacks, but that he would pledge himself to use the full weight and influence of Government to make it final; and if the noble Lord were to give up the principle of the resolution of 1835, I do not believe that the noble Lord would find a great minority to insist upon the resolution. But what course does the noble Lord take? Does he take the manly course of declaring that he will not retain the resolution of appropriation? Quite the reverse. The noble Lord has taken a course with respect to his proposed Tithe Bill and the nature of his resolution, which is calculated to excite suspicion and alarm. The noble Lord made no speech in laying his resolutions upon the table of the House, and permitted them to go to Ireland without any explanation of his objects and motives. And of what nature are the resolutions? I read them over and over again, and I doubt whether they contain the principle of appropriation or not. I am inclined to believe that they do contain the principle of appropriation. Am I singular in that opinion? What is the language of the noble Lord's own supporters? What said the Member for Wiltshire? He said, that he had read the resolutions over and over again, he devoted whole days to them, but it was not till last night that he discovered that they did not contain appropriation; and, be it observed, this was not till after the hon. Member had heard the speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord, the mover of the resolutions, yesterday made a speech of one hour and a-half's duration, and yet he never told us whether the principle of appropriation was contained in them or not. He left us more bewildered at the conclusion of his speech than at the beginning. I never before knew an instance of a man holding the situation of Secretary of State and leader of the House of Commons discuss a great question upon a motion which he meant to be the foundation of its settlement, and never to state what he meant. It was not till the end of the debate last night, that the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, told us, that he believed the appropriation principle was not included in the resolutions. What said the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward), than whom on the wording of resolutions no man in the House was a higher authority? He had been the mover of resolutions of his own, and was a good judge of what the resolutions were intended to be. With all the hon. Member's experience of resolutions, what said he of the vagueness of these resolutions of the noble Lord? He said, that on reading the resolutions his first impression was, that they were vague and ambiguous, but on reading them again he said he thought he discovered in them the germ of appropriation. This was the construction the hon. Gentleman put upon them. Those were his own phrases. What course does the noble Lord ask us to pursue? I will not say, whether there is any stratagem or trick; I have no right to impute motives, but this I will say, that never was a proposal made so calculated, though perhaps not intended, to entrap us into difficulties, for he asks us to go into Committee upon those resolutions, without first stating, what is his proposition respecting appropriation. Let me ask, how any impartial man would look at this question After all that has been said on the subject of Irish tithes—after making this a popular instrument by which you have heaved a former Government from office—after all the division in the country upon the subject, for the honour and credit of both sides, it should now be distinctly understood whether the question of appropriation is by those resolutions affirmed or not. Now, what is the position in which we are now placed by the noble Lord? We are invited in Committee to express in the first place an opinion, "that the tithe composition in Ireland should be commuted into a rent-charge, at the rate of seven-tenths of their amount." Now, what amendment could be proposed to the first resolution, but one purely of detail and of amount, as, for instance, to give seventy-five per cent. instead of seventy? But after having exhausted all discussion in matters of detail on the first resolution, there was the sixth resolution hanging behind:—"That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the rent-charges for ecclesiastical tithes should be appropriated by law to certain local charges now defrayed out of the consolidated fund and to education, the surplus to form part of the consolidated fund." Now, I ask, supposing we had assented to this resolution, would not there have gone forth one universal impression throughout this country and Ireland, that we bad abandoned the principle of appropriation. Why, what was said upon the subject of these resolutions by the hon. and learned Member for Dublin? What construction did that hon. and learned Member put upon these resolutions? I think his words upon this subject of great importance; and he expressed these in a letter which he published soon after these resolutions were promulgated. The right hon. Baronet read an extract from the letter in question to the following effect:—"Such was the plan of Lord John Russell. It held out the prospect of an immediate amelioration to the extent of thirty per cent., which, however, was scarcely adequate to what was required; another amelioration which it promised was, the appropriation of the surplus of these rent-charges to county burdens which had hitherto pressed on localities; and lastly, it speedily offered a direct appropriation of funds for education." The hon. and learned Member's letter continued by stating, that "he certainly did not concur in all Lord John's arrangement, but that he thought it contained the germs of a future arrangement, and a more perfect and final settlement." I say, Sir, that when the people of Ireland are told by such high authority as that of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin, that these resolutions are chiefly to be esteemed because they provide a direct appropriation fir the purposes of education, and because they are the germ of a future arrangement and more perfect and final settlement, they are warranted in drawing two conclusions—first, that the principle of appropriation is contemplated in these resolutions; and secondly, that even this arrangement is not to be a final settlement, but is only to be used as a stepping-stone to other arrangements. On these grounds I consider it to be absolutely necessary to arrive at a satisfactory understanding upon this point before we proceed further in this question. Three courses were open to us by which this understanding might have been attained either the noble Lord might have made a manly and frank avowal, that, finding it impossible to pass this measure fettered with the principle of the resolutions of 1835, he was prepared to sacrifice the appropriation clause in order to arrive at a satisfactory adjustment of the question; or we might have brought forward an abstract resolution of our own, condemnatory of the principle of appropriation; but that was a course which appeared to us obnoxious to the objection urged against your own resolutions of 1835, that they a were abstract resolutions, fettering the practical consideration of a particular subject; or lastly, the means were open to us which we have adopted, of asking the opinion of the House upon this question, and of showing our faithful adherence to the principles which we formerly defended, by moving the rescinding of those resolu- tions of 1335, as being calculated to obstruct the satisfactory settlement of this great practical question. To have put off this discussion would not in the least have forwarded the practical result at which we aim. We could not have discussed these resolutions in Committee without giving rise to it; or if your course had been by bill, the very preamble to the bill would have raised the question; and, therefore, on the whole it appeared to us most satisfactory, that, as a preliminary proceeding, we should elicit the opinion of the present Parliament upon this great point at issue, and show, that our opinion remains unchanged in reference to it. These are the grounds upon which I oppose these resolutions, being unable to lend my aid to the passing of a measure which shall tend to the alienation of Church property. The grounds upon which I act are not any dictates of false pride, which the noble Lord speaks of; but because I conceive, that to alienate Church property to secular purposes will inevitably shake the foundations of that establishment. The noble Lord referred to the Act of Union, and said, that he was resolved to maintain the Church Establishment because it was guaranteed by the Act of Union. I, Sir, adopt the same principle. The noble Lord says, that to disturb the Church would cut a rent in the Act of Union. I agree with the noble Lord, and I say, that if we adopt the principle of alienating the property of the Church, we create that rent. The question, Sir, with me now is this—is the Church of Ireland likely to enjoy more of staple freedom under the existing state of the law, or by purchasing a short respite from persecution at a cost of some 50,000l. or 60,000l.? And my opinion is, that unsatisfactory as is the present state of the affairs of the Church, it is less to be deplored than it would be after purchasing a small portion of goodwill, or rather, a brief immunity from attack on these terms. It is not the amount of the motley that I speak of, but the principle which is involved with it. What have we to urge in favour of the maintenance of the Church Establishment at present? The national compact entered into at the time of the time of the Union—the solemn guarantee given to the Protestants of Ireland, that the Protestant faith should be the established faith of that country, that their Church should be the Established Church, All the details and statements which are now advanced against the propriety of this arrangement, are there fully considered—the relative numbers of the Protestants and Catholics of Ireland were taken into account by the statesmen of that period—the poverty of the Roman Catholic population, and their poor ability to supply the means of religious culture, were all appreciated; but still the principle was adopted and declared, that the Church of the minority should be preserved. The Legislature of that day was not blind to the anomaly of the arrangement, but with full consideration of the objections to which it was liable, they determined as they did. There is another act connected with this subject—I mean the Act for the Relief of the Disabilities of the Roman Catholics. The noble Lord was pleased to taunt me for the part I took in the passing of this measure. I can only say, that I hear with perfect indifference any taunts which may be thrown out against me on that subject; for I feel that, if I had taken any other course than the one I took, for the purpose of gratifying any feelings of personal ambition or pride, I should have been so ashamed of my conduct that I should have been inclined at once to retire from public life. I brought forward that measure on account of the state of the public mind of the people of England at that period, apprehending more danger from the fact of ranging the Protestants of this country, in hostile feeling against those of Ireland than could arise from the privileges, to be conferred by that enactment. I entertained that opinion, I submitted it to the Crown; and was I, after having so done, to go out of office, and for the sake of an appearance of public consistency to offer a sham opposition to the very measure I had just recommended to the King, because I had always previously opposed it, and yet permit it to be carried? In my opinion, Sir, such conduct would have been dishonourable and dishonest to the fullest extent. In truth, it would have been much more convenient to me at that period, to have gone out of office, and allowed the hon. Gentlemen opposite to pass that bill; but having advised the King to sanction the measure; and the King having adopted my advice, I felt bound to sacrifice all personal considerations of every kind, and to assist in passing it. Some may say, that I should have come to this decision earlier than I did, I but no one can say, that having adopted that opinion, I left office, or shrunk from any of the personal responsibility which that opinion entailed upon me, including the sacrifice of party ties in which I had hitherto been bound up, and the risk of losing the confidence of those with whom I had always been accustomed to act. Would any one say, that it was any purpose of party power or aggrandisement that induced me to abandon what had been the chief pride of my life, the representation of the University of Oxford. The noble Lord, when he taunts me for my change of conduct in respect to the Roman Catholic Relief Act, and when he taunts my noble Friend near me for now acting in concurrence with me on this and other questions, can surely not forgot the very evident rejoinder to which he subjects himself. The noble Lord can surely not forget the year 1827, when, on the great subject of Parliamentary reform, he published an opinion that he saw no necessity for such a measure. But I will not pursue this further. These are too important subjects to be trifled with in this manner. I will not retort upon the noble Lord any of his taunts. I do not, in fact, feel anything that has been said, because I know, that any imputations of the sort, whether upon myself or my noble Friend, are unjust and unfounded. I do not feel them, they make no impression upon me, and therefore I shall not reply to them. I was speaking of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and I said, that at the time of the Union, we had a guarantee that the Protestant Church should be maintained as the Established Church in Ireland; and although the passing the Roman Catholic Bill was not in the nature of a compact, yet I am convinced that the majority of persons in the country then believed, that civil equality to Roman Catholics, might be conceded by that measure with perfect security to that establishment. If, at the time of debating that proposition, the hon. and learned Member for Dublin had told us, that the measure of relief would yet be incomplete—if he had told us his story of the Scotch taking to the hill side, and armed with swords, and informed us, that the first consequence of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill would be the spoliation of the Church of Ireland, let me tell him, that that measure never would have been passed. No; the people of this country would never have consented to the removal of those disabilities, if they had known that the inevitable consequence of it was to be the alienation of the property of the Church. So far from such a result being contemplated, I refer to the opinions of Lord Plunkett, Mr. Grattan, Lord Carbery, and others, who distinctly denied, that such would be the case. I refer also to the preamble of the bill, which stated that the removal of the civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics would tend to strengthen and maintain the Irish Church. This is our position now; but the moment we depart from it, and consent to purchase a little diversion of hostility from the Church, at a cost of 50,000l. or 60,000l., that very moment the principle upon which we stood, is abandoned, the Act of Union no longer guarantees the inviolability of the Church of Ireland, and we admit a principle of appropriating the revenues of the Church, to purposes of education, exclusive of the establishment. I do not mean to say, that it would become immoral for a Protestant father to give his children the benefit of this instruction, but it cannot be denied, that in bringing forward an indiscriminate system of education, we imply that it is to be a course of instruction not in the principles of the Established Church; and, therefore, the whole state of things in that respect would be at once changed. With respect also to your amount as applied to your principle. You say that 400,000l. is too much for the revenues of the Church, and you propose to abstract 50,000l.; but surely if you cannot maintain the maintenance of that Church upon the grounds of morality and reason, do you think that the Catholics of Ireland will be satisfied with an eighth only of these revenues? The principle of the noble Lord is at once fatal to the Establishment, whilst it has not the advantage of purchasing even present peace. On these grounds, therefore, I think that the present position of the Church of Ireland is better than it would be by accepting any such composition. The noble Lord says that the question now before us is a question between two distinct principles of Government. I am ready, with the noble Lord, to come forward to give all civil privileges to the people of Ireland, provided we can do so, still adhering to the principle of maintaining the integrity of the Established Church. This was the condition upon which I agreed to, and the people of England allowed of, the Roman Catholic Relief Bill; and unless we now have satisfaction on this head—namely, the security of the Church of Ireland—we shall prefer the satisfaction of awaiting the devolution of the new powers which may be directed to undermine its strength, to voluntarily giving up an eighth of its revenues to be diverted to purposes foreign to its objects. 'With reference to education, I should like, I must confess, to see the country so circumstanced as to allow of a system of education being conducted by members of the Church Establishment. [laughter] Hon. Members who laugh at this observation can surely not rightly apprehend its import. I said, that I should like to see the country so circumstanced as to allow of that principle of administering instruction; but I am too well aware that that cannot be the case in Ireland if any doctrines of the Established, or if any section of dissent, are made a sine quà non in the room of instruction. I am perfectly ready however, to allow of instruction being provided for the Roman Catholic population on general subjects; for I conceive that the interests of the country would be better consulted by giving them education than by keeping them ignorant. The alternative, therefore, is not between a course of Protestant education or of Catholic education, but a third course is open to us of general moral education, which I should willingly adopt. I certainly prefer a general course of instruction of this kind; and so far as the duties of the state are concerned in it, I should not object to allow the grant of any sum of money which might be deemed necessary for the purpose. And here, in fact, there is no real difference of opinion between me and the noble Lord. It is just as well that this instruction should be paid for direct and at once out of the consolidated fund, as by the complicated machinery of your sixth resolution, which, in fact, is a mere delusion. Whilst I object at all to the principle of alienating the funds of the Church from strictly ecclesiastical purposes I still more strongly object to applying such alienated funds to a course of education from which the principles of Protestant faith are excluded. The principles on which I object to this mode of appropriation are these. By this measure no satisfactory arrangement can be arrived at: it will alienate a part of the property of the Church, whilst at the same time, it will not give satisfaction to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. In passing such a measure as this you would be abandoning your duty as a Protestant Legislature, by allowing a principle which will in itself undermine the Protestant Church, or at least give the means, by future agitation and discontent, to bring it to a state of ruin. Upon these grounds, therefore, I give my cordial support to the amendment of my hon. Friend, in order to show my consistent maintenance of a principle which I ever defended in office, and which I still adhere to in opposition.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

said, that the disadvantage of rising to address the House at so late an hour on the second night of an adjourned debate was not diminished by the circumstance of his having to reply to the right hon. Baronet opposite, whom all admitted to be the leader in point of ability and elocution, as he was the leader in station, of the great party of the Opposition. He felt, however, that as the question upon which the House had to decide, when disencumbered of the extraneous circumstances pressed into the service—by no speaker with more profusion than the right hon. Baronet himself—was a very simple one, it would not be necessary for him to occupy their attention for any length of time; and that, confining himself to the real merits of the particular point at issue, a plain, easy, and simple duty awaited him. No one could more regret than he did that either angry feeling, or party bias should have been introduced into the present debate. But who was responsible for its introduction? What had led to it? Why, he took it, on the showing of the right hon. Baronet himself, for he could require no stronger authority than that which the right hon. Baronet's words afforded. The right hon. Baronet admitted that the proposition which had been made was one in which, he well knew, her Majesty's Government could not be expected to acquiesce. Why, then, had it been introduced at the present moment? If the resolutions on the table had involved the question of appropriation, he should not have quarrelled with the right hon. Baronet for saying to the House, "Before you discuss those resolutions, I will have you discuss the resolutions of appropriation which they include." But how stood the case? Did the resolutions of his noble Friend contain the principle of appropriation? The right hon. Baronet seemed to say he was uncertain as to whether they did or not; but he defied any man, who came to the discussion of the subject with the smallest practical knowledge, to entertain a doubt on the point. If there had been doubt on the subject, why did not the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, or some other Member of the Opposition, rise in his place and seek information from the Government as to whether or not it was their intention to include the question of appropriation in their resolutions? No, that course would not have suited the designs of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. They well knew that what was wanted was a trial of strength on the matter—they came to it, and he for one thanked them for thus giving the House an opportunity of reconsidering the matter. He regretted the course that had been taken by the Opposition; but on higher and better grounds than any party discussion or party division, and it was because he saw the effect of it was to deprive the Government of all chance of settling the question by an amicable discussion, in order to obtain for the Gentlemen opposite a party vote. He would put an analogous case connected with another subject of conflict between them and the right hon. Gentleman—he meant the Municipal Corporation measure; and, suppose the right hon. Gentleman had carried a resolution declaring the inexpediency of establishing Municipal corporations in Ireland, and that their existence was dangerous to the Protestant Church, and had afterwards come forward most generously to assist the Government in a measure respecting the Municipal Corporations, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would have been just, generous, wise, or statesmanlike, for the Government to say to him they would not take his measure, but that he must first rescind his resolutions, humble himself in the dust, lose his character as a public man, and degrade himself in the face of the country? He would put this as an analogous case. It was the same, except that the right hon. Gentleman fortunately had not carried his resolution, but the Government had had the benefit of carrying theirs. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to one observation which he had made on a former occasion, which was perfectly correct. He had then said to the right hon. Gentleman, that it would have been more direct and more manly to move that the resolution be rescinded, because the bill on the table at that time involved the appropriation clause; and if the present resolutions had involved that clause too, he should not have objected to the amendment which the hon. Baronet had proposed. But as it did not involve that principle, this motion had been brought forward for the purpose of trying party strength. The right hon. Gentleman had given them the history of the case, and had endeavoured to show to the House, that since the year 1835 the impediment to the settlement of the Irish Tithe Question had been the appropriation clause. But the right hon. Gentleman had neglected to mention what had occurred in the course of the preceding year. The House, however, would not fail to remember what took place with reference to that question in that year. A bill had been framed in 1834 for the settlement of the question, which had been sent up to the House of Lords, but which did not contain an appropriation clause; and yet the very party who now in supporting the motion of the hon. Baronet, professing to ground their opposition to the measures which had been offered by Government solely on the presence of that principle, were the very same party who in 1834 rejected that measure on other grounds, although it did not contain the obnoxious principle. The bill was moved in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne, and yet now the suggestion was, that her Majesty's Government did not sufficiently exert themselves to carry it. But he would say, that if ever there was a measure on which the Government put forth the whole of its strength, it was the measure of 1834. Hon. Members had used the words, and the right hon. Member for Tamworth had adopted the expressions, for which he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman, that the appropriation clause with all that belonged to it was got up for the purpose merely of effecting a change of Government. This he denied. But, supposing it was so, did hon. Gentlemen opposite think there was anything more politically dishonest in getting up, as they called it, a resolution, than in getting up a motion to rescind a resolution? But this charge he should show the House from incontrovertible evidence—the evidence of a Member of that House, was not only not true, but quite the reverse of the truth. The witness he should call into court was the bon. Member for Warkwickshire, the seconder of this motion, and his evidence was contained in a letter written to his constituents on the 12th of June, 1834. In that letter the hon. Baronet said—"I must say, I think, that as a Commission of Inquiry respecting the Irish Church has been issued, and as promises had been made by Ministers that the surplus revenues of the Church, if any, should be applied to the education of the people of Ireland, to make such application would be giving tenfold security to the Church Establishment in that country." Here were the sentiments of a Gentleman who had come forward as seconder of the present motion. Yet now they were told, that the promises to which the hon. Baronet referred in his letter had been made on an occasion when a "compact alliance" was entered into, and in order to purchase the support of an hon. and learned Gentleman and his friends who was at that time in direct hostility to the Government. Why there never was afforded by any preponderance of evidence a more complete refutation of any story than this had received. But he should be asked this question—as the resolutions do not contain the principle of appropriation, why not agree to rescind them? Now, to this he replied, that he would not consent to rescind those resolutions for two reasons—first because he felt that such a step would involve debasement and loss of character on the part of any set of men who could take it; and secondly, because in voting to rescind them he should vote against his own firm conviction; for he had already repeatedly affirmed, and he would again assert, the principle of the appropriation of the surplus funds of the Irish Church to the purposes of education. His opinion ever had been, and was still, in favour of that great principle. But if he could obtain the concurrence of the party, on the other side, he should be happy to make such concessions pointed out by his noble Friend the Secretary for the Home Department, as might lead to a practical settlement of the question, on a firm and permanent basis. But it was plainly one thing that he should be ready to deny a proposition which he thought to be true; and another, that he should be prepared to make all fair, and just, and reasonable concessions to hon. Gentlemen opposite. He would say, therefore, that though he thought the present not the best arrangement possible, yet that it was the best arrangement which circumstances would permit to be made. But how did his noble friend propose that arrangement? Why, as an experiment; and he added, that he had no hope of its proving effectual, unless attended with very general assent. The noble Lord, in a most frank, and he would say, a most generous spirit, had laid down a proposition, which he hoped, though it somewhat differed from that which he considered to be best and most desirable, might still lead to a Successful issue. Now, on this point, he must say, that the right hon. Gentleman mistook entirely the position of her Majesty's Government, if he thought that, for the sake of any convenience to themselves, they would submit to take a step which could not fail to bring down upon them degradation and disgrace; but in the eagerness which had been shewn by hon. Gentlemen opposite, to degrade and disgrace her Majesty's Government, and the party who acted with them, those hon. Gentleman had come down, and proposed this motion to the House. With what other conceivable object was this motion put forward? Hon. Gentlemen opposite knew it was open to them to legislate upon the subject with that resolution on the journals. The, noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, had made use of a phrase, in speaking on this subject, on a former occasion, which he certainly thought was a perfectly right and proper phrase, but for which the noble Lord had been previously and often called to account since—the noble Lord had spoken of the "total extinction of tithes in Ireland," and the House would recollect the interpretation which the noble Lord was told at the time it would meet with, and upon recalling that expression, and the circumstances in which it was made, how little would most men conceive that the noble Lord could possibly be one of those who now said to the Government, "We will not consent to come to any terms on this the question of tithes in Ireland, until you consent to rescind the resolutions, pledging you to a certain line on the subject, and thus to degrade yourselves for ever in the eyes of the country and the world. The noble Lord had put his argument with the clearness that belonged to him, into the form of a dilemma, and he therefore would take the liberty of putting his argument in another dilemma. Did their resolutions involve the appropriation principle or not? If they did, he thought the amendment ought to have been on the resolutions. If they did not, then he thought the amendment was wholly unnecessary, and that it was introduced for party purposes, and only for party purposes. But with regard to another point, the right hon. Gentleman opposite had misconceived the sentiments of the Government, if he thought that they expected to effect the tranquilization of Ireland, by adhering to the appropriation clause: they had expected to attain that most desirable result from the measure which they had brought forward for Municipal Corporation Reform, from mutual concessions on each side in both Houses of Parliament, and from a variety of well-conceived measures. It was with these views that they had heard, with the greatest satisfaction, the expectations held out by a noble Duke in another place—expectations to which they had attached an interpretation, which involved a greater degree of concession than it now appeared, the right hon. Baronet was willing to admit. However, the plan of Government was briefly this; having paid to the clergy the whole amount of their income on the one hand, Government would receive the rent-charge on the other, and this, which would thus become a part of the established revenue of the state, would be applied, subject to the necessary deductions, to the various branches of the public service connected with Ireland. This was their principle, and he must say, he felt it a consolation, that the question should be brought to a direct issue; he felt consolation too from the declarations of hon. Gentlemen, even of those who were opposed altogether to the appropriation principle, that they consider the proposition of the hon. Baronet, for rescinding resolutions of 1835, which affirm that principle as totally distinct from a proposition for reaffirming those resolutions. They said, that the motion was introduced for the purposes of party, and with what other view it could be pretended, with any probability of engaging conviction, to have been brought forward, he was at a loss to conceive. But on the subject of the clergy of Ireland, the right hon. Baronet had not dealt fairly with the observations of his noble Friend, the Secretary for the Home Department. The noble Lord said, with respect to a particular body of clergy, in one diocese, and grounding his remarks on the terms of a particular petition proceeding from that body, that it involved most erroneous suppositions, and fanciful anticipations of the operation of the plan which her Majesty's Ministers had in view, for the payment of the clergy in Ireland; but the noble Lord had never drawn any conclusion from these persons, to the whole body of the clergy of Ireland. He had fairly, and with perfect right, passed some strictures on the language of those particular petitioners. That Irish clergy were badly represented by those who put themselves prominently forward as its supporters. It would be most important hereafter to recollect, if no hope of a settlement of this question was left, that they had the authority of the Member for North Lancashire to maintain, that the clergy were satisfied with their condition; that it would be a sacrifice, on their parts, if any adjustment were made; and if the Government, from the impossibility of carrying any measure, should allow matters to remain as they are, the noble Lord must not taunt them with having deserted the clergy, but bear in mind, that he himself declared, that nine-tenths of the clergy wished for no legislation whatever on this subject. He was unwilling, that that should be the solution of this question; he wished it to be settled; but he asserted, if there was no prospect of an amicable arrangement in that House or the other, let it be borne in mind, that it was the suggestion of the noble Lord, not recommended by himself, but stated on the part of the clergy of Ireland, that they wish to remain precisely as they are without any legislative interference to disturb their condition. He was glad, that the noble Lord had made this declaration, because it might justify one of the alternatives which the course taken by hon. Members opposite might force upon them. They had brought forward these resolutions in good faith and in a kindly spirit. They knew they should be attacked in a friendly manner, no doubt, by such supporters as the hon. Member for Sheffield for their abandonment of the appropriation clauses; but they were willing to encounter such taunts, and much more if they could bring this question to a settlement; and but for the mischievous motion of the hon. Baronet—from whom of all men, it most surprised him that it should come—there was a chance of discussing, in an amicable and friendly spirit, that arrangement which was now completely set aside. Hon. Gentlemen opposite wished it to be understood that anger and asperity were altogether placed out of their consideration, and yet the right hon. Baronet, their leader, declared, that he knew the proposition made by the hon. Baronet was one in which the Government could not acquiesce. Was that the way to the amicable settlement which they professed? If they wished to fight the battle of principle on the resolutions, why not have taken issue on them? But that would not do, that would not answer the object, he would not say of the hon. Baronet (Sir T. Ackland), for his motives were, he was sure, perfectly pure and unimpeachable, but it would not answer the intention of those who drank "Success on Monday". If a course were to be taken to deprive Parliament of an opportunity of calm legislation, Ireland of a chance of peace, and to shut out all hope of reconciling the two Houses of the Legislature, now in so discordant and disunited a condition, that course would be no other than that adopted by the hon. Baronet—that which the Conservative party, as they called themselves, pursued. Conservatives of what? Of confusion and riot. He said boldly, that be the individual who he may, or the party what it might, who intercepted and prevented the adjustment of this question by raising a party discussion for party objects, on those individuals must rest the responsibility of the diminution in the means for the support of the clergy, of improving their usefulness, and of protracting that disunion which had already led to such awful effects. He was not disposed to re-argue the resolutions of 1835, which they were driven to re-affirm by the indirect means taken to rescind them in the Parliament of 1838. It was the hon. Gentlemen opposite who had called forth those topics of dissension, most appropriately if their object was to prevent a just settlement of this question; but if they really were the friends of peace—if they were the real friends to that Church of which they assumed to be champions, the opposite course was that which they should have taken. They ought to have been contented to go into Committee—to adopt those parts of the Government plan of which they approved, and to reject those which they condemned; but still they should have undertaken the inquiry in a spirit of good will, peace, and candour, instead of introducing into the discussion all the most angry passions, all the most formidable divisions, and doing what Mr. Plunkett once said in that House was the greatest of all dangers—"chaining men to opinions which practically they were disposed to abandon." Well, had Gentlemen opposite any great triumph from that expression? He had said no more than the resolutions; the Ministers were ready to take the second best, instead of the best; but they would never be so base or false as to put a negative on their own resolutions, which they believed in their consciences to be founded in nothing but what was just. If the noble Lord opposite had, on some occasion, said, "Abandon your resolutions, they have served your purpose sufficiently well, and now that you have no use for them, fling them aside:" would not such a course, if adopted, have exposed the Government to just obloquy and condemnation? No; they held to the resolutions, although if those opposed to them made a proper concession, they would found no measure on their principle, and would never taunt them with having altered their opinions, or move any preliminary resolutions on the subject of municipal corporations, being satisfied with having secured a practical object, and not wishing to introduce into these discussions the asperities and heats which had characterised that debate.

The House divided on the original question—Ayes 317; Noes 298: Majority 19.

List of the AYES.
Abercromby, G. R.	Callaghan, D.
Acheson, Lord	Campbell, Sir J.
Adam, Sir C.	Campbell, W. F.
Aglionby, H. A.	Carnac, Sir J.
Aglionby, F.	Cave, R. O.
Ainsworth, P.	Cavendish, hon. C.
Alston, Rowland	Cavendish, hn. G. H.
Andover, Lord	Cayley, E. S.
Anson, Colonel	Chalmers, P.
Anson, Sir G.	Chapman, Sir M. L.
Archbold, R.	Chester, H.
Attwood, T.	Chetwynd, Major
Bainbridge, E. T.	Chichester, J. P. B.
Baines, E.	Childers, J. W.
Ball, N.	Clay, W.
Bannerman, Alex.	Clayton, Sir W.
Barnard, E. G.	Clements, Viscount
Barron, H.	Clive, E. B.
Barry, G. S.	Codrington, Sir E.
Beamish, F. B.	Collier, J.
Bellew, R. M.	Collins, W.
Benett, J.	Colquhoun, Sir J.
Bentinck, Lord W.	Craig, W. G.
Berkeley, hon. H.	Crawford, W.
Berkeley, hon. G.	Crompton, Samuel
Berkeley, hon. C.	Currie, Raikes
Bernal, R.	Curry, W.
Bewes, T.	Dalmeny, Lord
Blackett, C.	Dashwood, G. H.
Blake, M. J.	Davies, T. H.
Blake, W. J.	Denison, W. J.
Blewitt, R. J.	Dennistoun, J.
Blunt, Sir C.	D'Eyncourt, C. T.
Bodkin, J.	Divett, E.
Bowes, J.	Duckworth, S.
Brabazon, Lord	Duff, J.
Brabazon, Sir W.	Duke, Sir J.
Bridgeman, H.	Duncan, Lord
Briscoe, J. I.	Duncombe, T.
Brocklehurst, J.	Dundas, C. W. D.
Brodie, W. B.	Dundas, Captain D.
Brotherton, J.	Dundas, F.
Browne, R. D.	Dundas, hon. J. C.
Bryan, G.	Dundas, hon. T.
Buller, E.	Easthope, J.
Bulwer, E. L.	Ebrington, Lord
Busfield, W.	Edwards, Colonel
Butler, hon. P.	Elliot, hon. J. E.
Byng, G.	Ellice, Captain A.
Byng, G. S.	Ellice, E.

Erle, W.	Lemon, Sir C.
Etwall, Ralph	Leveson, Lord
Evans, Sir De Lacy	Lister, E. C.
Evans, G.	Loch, J.
Evans, W.	Lushington, Dr. S.
Fazakerley, J. N.	Lushington, C.
Fenton, J.	Lynch, A. H.
Ferguson, Sir R.	M'Leod, R.
Ferguson, Sir R. A.	Macnamara, Major
Ferguson, R.	M'Taggart, J.
Fergusson, rt. hon. R. C.	Maher, J.
Finch, F.	Marshall, W.
Fitzgibbon, hon. R.	Marsland, H.
Fitzroy, Lord C.	Martin, J.
Fleetwood, P. H.	Maule, hon. Fox
Fort, John	Maule, W. H.
French, F.	Melgund, Viscount
Gillon, W. Downe	Mildmay, St. P. J.
Gordon, R.	Milton, Viscount
Goring, H. D.	Moreton, hon. A. H.
Grattan, J.	Morpeth, Lord
Grattan, H.	Morris, D.
Greenaway, C.	Murray, rt. hon. J.
Grey, Sir C. E.	Muskett, G. A.
Grey, Sir G.	Nagle, Sir R.
Grosvenor, Lord R.	O'Brien, W. S.
Grote, G.	O'Brien, C.
Guest, J.	O'Callaghan, C.
Hall, B.	O'Connell, D.
Hallyburton, Lord	O'Connell, J.
Handley, H.	O'Connell, M. J.
Harland, W. C.	O'Connell, Morgan
Harvey, D. W.	O'Connell, Maurice
Hastie, A.	O'Ferrall, R. M.
Hawes, B.	Ord, W. H.
Hawkins, J. H.	Paget, Lord A.
Hayter, W. G.	Paget, F.
Heathcoat, J.	Palmer, C. F.
Hector, C. J.	Palmerston, Viscount
Heneage, E.	Parker, J.
Heron, Sir R.	Parnell, Sir H.
Hill, Lord A. M.	Parrott, J.
Hindley, C.	Pattison, J.
Hobhouse, rt. hn. Sir J.	Pease, J.
Hobhouse, T. B.	Pechell, Captain R.
Hodges, T. L.	Pendarves, E. W.
Hollond, R.	Philips, Sir R.
Horsman, E.	Philips, M.
Hoskins, K.	Philips, G. R.
Howard, F. J.	Phillpots, J.
Howard, P. H.	Pinney, W.
Howard, R.	Ponsonby, C. F. A.
Howick, Viscount	Ponsonby, hon. J.
Hume, J.	Potter, R.
Humphrey, J.	Power, J.
Hurst, R. H.	Power, John
Hutt, W.	Price, Sir R.
Hutton, R.	Protheroe, E.
James, W.	Pryme, G.
Jephson, C. D.	Pryse, Pryse
Jervis, J.	Pusey, P.
Jervis, S.	Ramsbotton, J.
Johnson, General	Redington, T. N.
Labouchere, H.	Rice, E. R.
Lambton, H.	Rice, rt. hon. T. S.
Langdale, hon. C.	Rich, H.
Lefevre, C. S.	Rippon, Cuthbert

Roche, E. B.	Thomson, C. P.
Roche, W.	Thornely, T.
Roche, D.	Townley, R. G.
Rolfe Sir R. M.	Troubridge, Sir
Rumbold, C. E.	Turner, E.
Rundle, J.	Turner, W.
Russell, Lord John	Verney, Sir H.
Russell, Lord	Vigors, N. A.
Russell, Lord C.	Villiers, C. P.
Salwey, Colonel	Vivian, Major C.
Sanford, E. A.	Vivian, J. H.
Scholefield, J.	Vivian, Sir R. H.
Scrope, G. P.	Wakley, T.
Seale, Colonel	Walker, C. A.
Seymour, Lord	Walker, R.
Sharpe, General	Wallaoe, R.
Sheil, R. L.	Warburton, H.
Shelburne Earl	Ward, H. G.
Slaney, R. A.	Weymss, Capt.
Smith, J. A.	Westenra, H. R.
Smith, B.	Westenra, J. C.
Smith, hon. R.	White, A.
Smith, R. V.	White, L.
Somers, J. P.	White, S.
Somerville, Sir W.	Wilbraham, G.
Spiers, A.	Wilde, Sergeant
Spencer, hon. F.	Wilkins, W.
Standish, C.	Williams, W.
Stanley, W. M.	Williams, W. A.
Stanley, W. O.	Wilshere, W.
Stansfield, W. R. C.	Winnington, T. E.
Staunton, Sir G.	Winnington, H. J.
Stewart, J.	Wood, C.
Stuart, Lord J.	Wood, Sir M.
Stuart, V.	Wood, G. W.
Strangways, hon. J.	Worsley, Lord
Strickland, Sir G.	Woulfe, Sergeant
Strutt, E.	Wrightson, W.
Style, Sir C.	Wyse, T.
Talbot, C. R. M.	Yates, J. A.
Talbot, J. H.	TELLERS.
Talfourd, Serg.	Stanley, E. J.
Tancred, H. W.	Steuart, R.

List of the NOES.
Acland, Sir T.	Barrington, Lord
Acland, T. D.	Bateson, Sir R.
A'Court, Captain	Bell, M.
Adare, Lord	Bentinck, Lord G.
Alford, Lord	Bothell, R.
Alsager, Captain	Blackbourne, I.
Arbuthnott, hon. H.	Blackstone, W. S.
Archdall, M.	Blair, J.
Ashley, Lord	Blakemore, R.
Ashley, hon. H.	Blandford, Marquess
Attwood, W.	Blenerhassett, A.
Attwood, M.	Boldero, H. G.
Bagge, W.	Bolling, W.
Bagot, hon. W.	Bradshaw, J.
Bailey, J.	Bramston, T. W.
Bailey, J., jun.	Broadley, H.
Baillie, H. D.	Broadwood, Henry
Baker, E.	Brownrigg, S.
Baring, F.	Bruce, Lord E.
Baring, W. B.	Bruges, W. H. L.
Barneby, John	Buller, Sir J. Y.

Burdett, Sir F.	Fox, G. L.
Burr, H. D.	Freshfield, J.
Burrell, Sir C.	Gaskell, Jas. Milnes
Burroughes, H. N.	Gibson, T.
Calcraft, J. H.	Gladstone, W. E.
Canning, rt. hn. Sir S.	Glynne, Sir S. R.
Cantalupe, Lord	Goddard, A.
Cartwright, W. R.	Godson, R.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Gordon, hon. Capt.
Chandos, Marquess of	Gore, Ormsby J. R.
Chapman, A.	Gore, Ormsby, W.
Chisholm, A. W.	Goulburn, rt. hon. H.
Chute, W. L. W.	Graham, Sir, J.
Clerk, Sir G.	Granby, Marquess of
Clive, Viscount	Grant, hon. Colonel
Clive, hon. R. H.	Greene, T.
Codrington, C. W.	Grimsditch, T.
Cole, A. H.	Grimston, Lord
Cole, Visct.	Grimston, hon. E. H.
Colquhoun, J. C.	Hale, R. B.
Compton, H. C.	Halford, H.
Conolly, E. M.	Harcourt, G. G.
Coote, Sir C.	Harcourt, G. S.
Copeland, W. T.	Hardinge, Sir H.
Corry, H.	Hawes, T.
Courtenay, P.	Hayes, Sir E. S.
Cresswell, C.	Heathcote, Sir W.
Crewe, Sir G.	Henniker, Lord
Cripps, J.	Hepburn, Sir T. B.
Dalrymple, Sir A.	Herbert, hon. S.
Damer, D.	Herries, rt. hon. J. C.
Darby, G.	Hill, Sir R.
Darlington, Earl	Hillsborough, Lord
Davenport, John	Hinde, J. H.
De Horsey, S. H.	Hodgson, F.
Dick, Q.	Hodgson, R.
D'Israeli, B.	Hogg, J. Weir
Dottin, Abel Rouse	Holmes, hon. W. A.
Douglas, Sir C. E.	Holmes, W.
Douro, Marquess	Hope, G. W.
Dowdeswell, W.	Hotham, Lord
Duffield, T.	Houldsworth, T.
Dugdale, W. S.	Houston, G.
Dunbar, G.	Howard, W.
Duncombe, hon, W.	Hughes, W. B.
Duncombe, hon. A.	Hurt, F.
East, J. B.	Ingestrie, Lord
Eastnor, Viscount	Ingham, Lord
Eaton, R. J.	Inglis, Sir R. H.
Egerton, W. T.	Irton, S.
Egerton, Sir P.	Irving, J.
Egerton, Lord F.	Jackson, Sergeant
Eliot, Lord	James, Sir W. C,
Ellis, J.	Jenkins, R.
Estcourt, T.	Jermyn, Earl of
Estcourt, T.	Johnstone, Hope
Farnham, E. B.	Jones, J.
Farrand, R.	Jones, T.
Fector, J. M.	Kelly, F.
Feilden, W.	Kemble, H.
Fellowes, E.	Kerrison, Sir E.
Filmer, Sir E.	Kerr, D.
Fitzroy, hon. H.	Kirk, P.
Fleming, J.	Knatchbull, Sir E.
Foley, E. T.	Knight, H. G.
Follett, Sir W.	Knightley, Sir C.
Forrester, hon. G	Lascelles, hon. W.

Law, hon. C.	Reid, Sir J. R.
Lefroy, T.	Richards, R.
Liddell, H. T.	Rickford, W.
Lincoln, Earl of	Rolleston, L.
Litton, E.	Rose, Sir G.
Lockhart, A. M.	Round, C. G.
Lowther, Colonel	Round, J.
Lowther, Lord	Rushbrooke, Colonel
Lowther, J. H.	Rushout, G.
Lucas, E.	St. Paul, H.
Lygon, General	Sanderson, R.
Mackenzie, T.	Sandon, Lord
Mackenzie, W. F.	Scarlett, hon. J. Y.
Maclean, Donald	Shaw, F.
Mahon, Lord	Sheppard, T.
Maidstone, Viscount	Shirley, E. J.
Manners, Lord C.	Sibthorp, Colonel
Marsland, T.	Sinclair, Sir G.
Marton, G.	Smith, Abel
Master, T. W. C.	Smyth, Sir G. H.
Mathew, G. B.	Somerset, Lord G.
Maunsell, T. P.	Spry, Sir S.
Maxwell, H.	Stanley, E.
Meynell, Captain	Stanley, Lord
Miles, W.	Stewart, J.
Miles, P. W. S.	Stuart, H.
Miller, W. H.	Stormont, Lord
Milnes, R. M.	Sturt, H. C.
Moneypenny, T. G.	Sugden, Sir E.
Mordaunt, Sir J.	Teignmouth, Lord
Morgan, C. M. R.	Tennent, J. E.
Neeld, J.	Thomas, Col. H.
Neeld, J.	Thompson, Alderman
Nicholl, J.	Thornhill, G.
Norreys, Lord	Trench, Sir F.
Northland, Viscount	Trevor, hon. G.
O'Neil, General	Vere, Sir C. B.
Ossulston, Lord	Verner, Colonel
Owen, Sir J.	Vernon, G. H.
Packe, C. W.	Villiers, Lord
Packington, G. S.	Vivian, J. E.
Palmer, R.	Waddington, H. S.
Palmer, G.	Wall, C. B.
Parker, M.	Walsh, Sir J.
Parker, R. T.	Welby, G. E.
Parker, T. A.	Whitmore, T. C.
Patten, J. W.	Wilbraham, H. B.
Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.	Williams, R.
Peel, Colonel J.	Williams, T. P.
Pemberton, T.	Wilmot, Sir J. E.
Perceval, Colonel	Wodehouse, E.
Perceval, G. J.	Wood, Colonel T.
Pigot, R.	Wood, T.
Planta, J.	Wyndham, W.
Polhill, E.	Wynn, rt. hon. C. W.
Pollen, Sir J.	Wynn, Sir W. W.
Pollock, Sir F.	Yorke, hon. E. T.
Powell, Colonel	Young, J.
Powerscourt, Lord	Young, Sir W.
Praed, W. M.
Price, R.	TELLERS.
Pringle, A.	Fremantle, Sir T. W.
Rae, Sir W.	Baring, H. B.
Pairs.
Baring, F. T.	Conyngham, Lord A.
Buller, C.	Dunlop, J.

Ellice, E.	Tollemache, T. J.
Fitzpatrick, J. W.	Christophers R. A.
Fitzsimon, N.	Alexander, Lord
O'Connor, Don	Tyrrell, Sir J.
White, H.	Dungannon, Lord
Plumptre, J. P.	Campbell, Sir H. P.
Hope, J.	Cooper, E. J.
Absent.
Cowper, W.	Leader, J. T.
Euston, Lord	Lennox, Lord S.
Feilden, J.	Lennox, Lord A.
Fitzalan, Lord	Long, W.
Jones, W.	Mackinnon, W. A.
Heathcote, Sir S.	Martin, J.
Heathcote, G.	Molesworth, Sir W.
Kinnaird, A.	Noel, W.
Langton, Col. Gore	Surrey, Lord

For the Amendment	300
Against the Amendment	319
Pairs	18
Absent	18
Speaker	1
Vacant: St. Ives, Gloucester	2
658

The House went into Committee, pro forma, and immediately resumed.

Committee to sit again.