§ Major Beresford, in resuming the debate, after claiming the indulgence of the House for the observations he felt called on to make, said, he should address the House on the present occasion in the double capacity of an English Representative and an Irish Protestant; in the first character weighed by that feeling of diffidence, which, from so seldom addressing the House, he naturally endured; in the latter, feeling the awful responsibility of maintaining the Reformed Church in Ireland, which his ancestors had assisted to establish, and which, when established, they had for generation after generation continued to support and foster. Before he entered upon the subject in detail, he wished to add his congratulations to those which the right hon. Secretary at War offered the House last evening on the total absence of religious acrimony which had hitherto distinguished the debate. In his observations he should endeavour to preserve to the debate the same character. His feelings towards his Roman Catholic fellow-subjects were those of great kindness and the utmost liberality, and that liberality had not been of words only; it had been proved by deeds. Early in life he had marred his prospects for their cause. In 1823, when he was very young, at a time when a seat in that House was frequently at the disposal of persons in high station, he refused to enter the House of Commons, because he would not sit there without voting for Catholic Emancipation. If he had thus marred his prospects early in life, could he now be called a bigot because he voted against the present Bill? He was no bigot; but he did think that there was a limit to concession, particularly when concession had not been responded to as it ought to have been. They had been told 693 by an authority of far greater influence than he could be, that there was a limit to concession; but the actions of those who said so showed that they now thought concession had no limits; their motto was Toujours en avant. During the period that he had had the honour of a seat in that House he had purposely refrained from voting against the annual grant to Maynooth, because he was continually told that it was proposed in accordance with a compact entered into by Parliament; and though he never could discover the specific Act which contained the compact, and though the object of the grant was not in accordance with his principles, yet he had abstained from giving an adverse vote, lest he might be participating in an Act which involved a breach of faith. If he had not misunderstood the right hon. Baronet, he might have saved himself from such over-scrupulousness; for the right hon. Gentleman had stated in the speech by which he introduced this measure, that it was competent to the House of Commons to withdraw the grant: if SO, it was competent to an individual Member who disapproved of it, to vote against it. But the present measure was entirely a new one; and as such he had a perfect right to vote against it. But before be altogether dismissed the subject of compacts, he wished to ask one question with respect to them. At the time of the Legislative Union between the two countries, was no compact entered into with regard to the Established Church in Ireland? He contended there was such a compact; and one more firm, more tangible, and more visible than that involved in the grant to Maynooth, which required all the talents of able and subtle casuists to sustain. He asked the plain and honest question, had the compact with the Church of Ireland been maintained? Had not ten bishops been taken away from that Church "at one fell swoop?" Had not the income of the Irish clergy been diminished one-fourth? Had not 23 per cent. of the income of the Church in Ireland been given to the landed proprietors, and were not the gentlemen of Ireland turned into the land agents of the clergy? He trusted he should not hear so much of a compact again. The present measure was distinctly a new one; the right hon. Member for Newark (a good authority on such matters), had admitted that; and he (Major Beresford) declared it to be ab initio a fresh endowment by the Imperial Parliament of the College of Maynooth for the education of 694 the priesthood of the Roman Catholic persuasion—an endowment which was not given to any other creed in the country, not even to the Established Church. He could see no good reason why the Roman Catholic clergy only should enjoy this special privilege, nor could he understand how they could refuse it to every other sect, if they once established the precedent; he, therefore, on principle opposed this measure. He had no hesitation to class himself among those persons whom the hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck) could not understand or sympathize with, because they acted on principle. He considered, when an institution like Maynooth received an increased and permanent grant, and the Government voluntarily offered to give that larger sum, that the Parliament who voted the increase, and the people of England who paid it, had a right first to be informed of the use the institution had made of the smaller sum. They had a right to inquire whether the means and powers conferred on it had been used for the benefit of the country at large, and the dissemination of religion and loyalty amongst those for whose advantage the grant was intended. He believed if such an inquiry was strictly instituted, it would not tend to the honour of Maynooth. He had promised to abstain as much as possible from virulence or invective; but he had had many opportunities of seeing the priesthood of Ireland who had been educated at Maynooth, and he had found them generally more disposed to disseminate the precepts of agitation among the people, than the more wholesome doctrines of religion and peace. Such, indeed, had been the conduct of the priesthood educated at Maynooth, that the supreme head of the Catholic Church, the Sovereign Pontiff, had found it necessary to reprove the system of agitation pursued by the priests in Ireland, and strongly to censure the misapplication of their influence among their subservient flocks. But here they perceived this curious anomaly, that while the Sovereign Pontiff at Rome, the head of that Church, deemed the Maynooth priesthood deserving of his censure, the First Lord of the Treasury in England held up Maynooth itself as a worthy object for Parliamentary endowment and Ministerial favour. As those two eminent persons were each considered, within their respective circles, to be perfectly infallible, he found some difficulty in saying whose opinion was the correct one perhaps, he, as 695 an Irishman, might be permitted to suggest, that though they differed so totally, yet that being infallible, both were right. The failure of the present system at Maynooth was alleged as one of the weightiest reasons for the larger grant; that seemed to assume that larger means would bring necessarily greater success; but as larger means conferred greater power, and as the powers before given had not been used beneficially, he prognosticated for the future only a greater amount of failure. But if, on the other hand, the predictions of the right hon. Baronet should prove correct—if all the felicitous effects which he foretells should develope themselves—if they did obtain from new Maynooth a larger supply of enlightened and gentlemanlike priests, different in manners and tastes from the priests of old Maynooth, would they stop here? Would they allow the improved creation of their own liberal legislation to be supported by a revenue gathered from "halfpence, potatoes, and rags?" Must they not endow generously those they had educated liberally? They would have created wants, and those wants they must supply; but when they came to the means of doing it, they would find the people of England would not tolerate further burdens for the purpose of endowing a Catholic seminary, or a Popish. Church. The people of England desired to crush this Bill; perhaps they would not be able to do it; but before this second endowment, which appeared to be a necessary consequence of the first, came under consideration, a general election must take place; the electors of England might then act vituperatively as regarded the past. He trusted they might do so; but if they did not, they would act with vigilant precaution as to the future, and allow no vote out of the Consolidated Fund for such a purpose. Whence, then, would come the funds for this endowment? In the dearth of other means, it would, he feared, be suggested to take them from the revenue of the Established Church. This would prove an expedient, though not a well-principled resource; but alas! expediency was now considered superior to principle. Strange as it might sound, they might yet see the right hon. Baronet coming down to that House with due solemnity, and gravely proposing to Parliament to confiscate four-fifths of the revenue of the Establishment for the support of a priesthood, whose manners he had reformed, whose tastes he had elevated, and whose wants he had created and must supply. 696 Then the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) might have the felicity of seeing his favourite, though stunted, bantling ushered in full vigour into public life, and presented, on coming of age, by the right hon. Baronet. It would not be the first time they had witnessed such a shifting of the scenes; it would not be the first time that a piece which had been well damned in the one theatre, had been acted with unbounded applause by the rival company. And in such a play as this, may not the chief character of head appropriator of the revenues of the Established Church in Ireland be enacted in the year 1850 by the Conservative Premier of 1835? Whatever might be the result of this Bill, whether it produced the fortunate result the right hon. Gentleman expected, or the unfortunate ones he predicted, in both cases he saw danger to the Established Church, and should, therefore, from attachment to that Church, and from principle, vehemently oppose the Bill. There were, however, minor objections also against this Bill, both as regards the mode of carrying it out, and the time of introducing it. The present would have been a good opportunity for correcting the evils of the existing system at Maynooth; and common sense would have taken care to see that the grant was properly applied. But this opportunity was to be thrown away; no control over the College was proposed to be enforced. With regard to the Established Church in England, such a control was required; grants of the public money were refused to the national schools, unless certain conditions of inspection and other means of control were agreed to—this proved there was a distinct mode of dealing with the Established Church in England and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. They had better reason to call for justice to the Church of England, than they had to call for justice to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. He had another objection to this Bill, on account of the time at which it was brought forward. At the very time they introduced this measure, the Government refused all aid to Scriptural education in Ireland. It had turned a deaf ear to the prayers of the Primate and the bench of Bishops for assistance in educating the Protestant people of Ireland in the Word of God, according to what they believed the proper course of education; and at the same time the Government was about to impose burdens on the people of England, in order to propagate doctrines which the 697 people of England believed to be erroneous. It seemed to him, whatever might be the individual opinions of Members, yet, sitting there collectively, they were in the habit of legislating as if they regarded every other creed as superior to the one which the majority of the House professed; and he thought their modest diffidence of asserting their principles spoke more of a lack of faith than of Christian humility. Last year all their favour was lavished on the Socinians; this year it was bestowed on the Jews and the Roman Catholics. But if by any chance a measure tending in any way to exalt, the influence and raise the power of the Established Church happened to be brought forward, when an opposition reared its front, that measure was instantly withdrawn. Thus, the Educational Clauses of the Factory Bill were withdrawn, in consequence of the petitions presented against it. Had no petitions been presented against the proposed grant of Maynooth? Was it not notorious that the petitions against this grant were far greater in number than those which had been presented on the former occasion to which he had alluded? No honest man who was a sound reasoner could come to the conclusion of arguing on this matter on the principle of inverse ratio, and, because there were more petitions against the measure, pay less attention to them. But they were told that these petitions were the result of an agitation which should not be attended to. He denied the fact, and reprobated the inference. He trusted the people of England would know who it was that rejected their humble petitions, and turned a deaf ear to their honest prayers. But to return to the complaints of the Established Church—if any part of it had, more than another, just reason to complain of late of adverse legislation, it was the Protestant Church of Ireland. The Protestants of Ireland had drunk deeply of the bitter cup of disappointed hope and blighted expectations. The Protestants of Ireland had seen a change of men at the head of affairs, but they observed no change of measures as regarded themselves. The Protestants of Ireland knew that it was a sound maxim of religion, that "whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." But the Protestants of Ireland felt that to apply that maxim to politics, and say that whom the Minister loveth he chasteneth, was unsound in principle, novel in practice, disagreeable in experience, and calculated neither to create gratitude nor to engender affection. And 698 yet it was on the gratitude and affection of the Protestants of Ireland that had hitherto mainly depended the Legislative Union of the two Kingdoms. Let them but undermine the one, and destroy the other, and the dismemberment of the Empire will probably follow — a dismemberment to which the fostering of Maynooth would materially contribute. It was with great regret that he felt himself called upon to speak thus openly and plainly. The subject, however, was one on which, in an Irish Protestant, silence was cowardice, and flattery a dereliction of principle. He trusted, that although he had thus spoken plainly and openly, he had said nothing uncourteous, nothing personal, nothing offensive to those whom, while he could, he had vehemently and zealously supported, and to whom he was now only opposed, because they were bringing forward measures diametrically at variance with the best principles which placed them in power. It only remained for him to thank the House for the kind attention with which they had listened to him. What he had said, he could assure the House had been spoken by him in all sincerity—and that sincerity was the best excuse he could offer for having detained them so long.
Mr. Byngobserved, that upon this question he wished to say a few words. He would promise the House that his remarks should be very brief. Having felt, interested from the bottom of his heart in favour of the Catholics of Ireland now for sixty-seven years, he could not allow this opportunity to pass without saying a very few words. He thought that he could support this measure, not only upon political grounds, but on what was far nearer and dearer to his heart—religious grounds also. He thought that the Catholics of Ireland had been worse governed than the subjects of any other State in Europe. He could not find in the sacred Scriptures that he was ordered by the great God who made them all, to have any man because he differed from him in his religious views. There was no such mandate to be found in the sacred volume. He believed that every man had a right to worship God Almighty according to the mode which he imagined would be most acceptable to the great God. God Almighty alone knew when men pursued the mode of worship which was pleasing in his sight; He was the searcher of all hearts, and knew whether any human being was or was not sincere—sincerity was what He 699 expected and loved, and He would tolerate nothing else. It was impossible that he (Mr. Byng) could any longer remain in that House to give a vote involving the interests of his Catholic fellow-subjects, if he did not record that vote in their favour. He thought it his bounden duty on all occasions when he came to that House to think of his fellow man. He was to think of them alone. He was never to think of himself; and, thank God, when the time should arrive, that he retired from that House, he could safely and conscientiously lay his hand upon his heart and say that he had never given a selfish vote, or a vote which he thought contrary to the happiness and welfare of this great country—never, never, never. He was sorry to see so many of the different sects of Protestants with which this country abounded, arrayed against this measure. He remembered that on a former occasion they were arrayed against a friend of his, Mr. Harvey Combe, in great numbers; but in the personal canvas which he had made amongst some of them, he had inquired of them if they were that day against the Catholics, what would become of them, the Dissenters, the next week? He had said to them then, "Do you think that the Church of England is more partial to the Dissenters than it is to the Roman Catholics?" And by speaking openly and boldly to them he found that, instead of having them all against him, they were all for him. At a county meeting on that occasion, where they met, gentlemen present would not vote? He told the Catholics that they must not send a single Catholic. He left it entirely to the freeholders, and they were unanimous. In the course of ten days, they, by speaking plainly to them, were all for him. The more he thought of that, the more convinced he was that such might be the case, in reference to this measure, with the Dissenters throughout the entire country. Let them only think for a moment who were the Ministers of the day. They were the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. Now could any man imagine that there were any two who could really dislike the measure before them more than the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel? No, there were none. But he was sure that this dislike had not the smallest influence over their actions. They thought that this measure would be for the good of the country. That was their feeling on the subject, and that was their desire he was confident. He himself could not at 700 that moment forget that while 7,000,000 of his fellow subjects had no endowment whatever, at least no endowment worth naming, a very small number, about eight hundred thousand Protestants, were superintended in their religious concerns by a clergy who had more in proportion for their labour than the clergy of this country. That being the case, he felt bound to give his most cordial vote in support of the measure.
§ Colonel Vernerfelt confident that there was not an hon. Member in the House who could not give the hon. Member who had just sat down credit for the sincerity with which he had declared his sentiments. He could not recollect so far back as the hon. Member had stated he recollected; but if the hon. Member had given his support to the Roman Catholics of Ireland for sixty-seven years, he (Colonel Verner) could say that he had given his humble aid in favour of Protestantism for fifty years. It had not been originally his intention to have taken any part in the present debate; indeed, he might say that his intention had been to have abstained from doing so, seeing how useless it was; but when he observed so powerful and so general a feeling throughout the Kingdom against the Bill, and when that feeling had been endeavoured to be conveyed to the House, by the shower of petitions which had been laid upon that Table, he did not think that he would be discharging his duty to himself or to those he represented by giving a silent vote. The hon. Member said he could not agree in opinion with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newark, who had so recently withdrawn himself from the framers and promoters of the Bill, and who had so fully qualified himself to return to them again, that the petitions presented to the House were not to be taken as representing the sentiments of the people. He had always understood that there were but two ways by which the people could approach that House, in order to make known their wishes. The one was by petition—the other through their Representatives. In the present instance they had tried both—they had poured in their petitions by thousands, and they had accompanied the petitions by an unanimous call upon their Representatives to support their prayer. What more, he would ask, could they do? Had a contrary opinion been prevalent throughout the country, surely those who approved of the measure 701 could have expressed that opinion in like manner; whereas he had heard of but one petition presented in favour of it, and that, he believed, was signed by an individual. The hon. Member had that day the honour to present a petition from Belfast, signed by thirty-seven ministers of different congregations, and he felt proud that he had been selected to present their petition. The petition was accompanied by a letter, which, with the permission of the House, he would take the liberty to read, although he had no authority from the gentleman by whom it was written to do so. There were two reasons why he craved the indulgence of the House to be permitted to read that letter—one was, in order to contradict the statement made in the House that the Presbyterians of the North were favourable to that Bill; the other, because it conveyed the sentiments which he (Colonel Verner) knew to be entertained by, not alone the Protestants of Ulster, but by the Protestants of Ireland generally. The hon. Member then read the following letter:—
§ "Belfast, April 12, 1845.
§ "Sir,—Deserted by our town Members at this critical juncture, I request that you will kindly state the protest and petition, which I inclose by this post, against the grant to Maynooth. It is signed by ministers alone—by thirty-seven, all connected, with the town, and belonging to the Church of England, Presbyterian Church, Independents, Methodists, and Voluntaries.
§ "There is but one feeling of sorrow and shame at the conduct of the Government. When the proposal of Sir R. Peel became known, a public meeting was resolved upon—as any meeting previously would be declaiming in the dark. But the exceedingly short interval allowed for the expression of opinion has perfecly muzzled us, and created a deep and general indignation. We felt we had only time to protest—and that protest, as the secretary of my brother ministers, I request you to present and support.
§ "Hoping that the energy and unity of right-hearted men may yet, with God's aid, stem the tide, and bring back the Government to their right mind—I remain, &c.
§ "To Colonel Verner."
§ He did not remember in the course of his experience an instance, in which the violation of principle was so little recommended by any promise of a good result, as in that of the Bill now in rapid progress through the House. The violation of principle appeared to him quite manifest. The expediency of the measure he was unable to discover— 702 and he had not heard any rational promise of expediency held out by any hon. Member who had addressed the House. The violation of principle was manifest; not only in a religious, but in a political point of view. The Bill introduced by the right hon. Baronet was strikingly at variance with his own declared policy. What was the reason why the grant, so long bestowed in aid of Scriptural education, was withdrawn? It was that the advantages of a united and mixed education were so vast, that in order to obtain them it was justifiable to put fetters upon the freedom of Scriptural education. This was, at least, the reason assigned. Let them now compare the present policy with the past. If it were desirable that children of different communions be educated in the same buildings and the same rooms, was it desirable also that Roman Catholic priests should be educated apart and in secret? Was it wise that the British Government should withdraw all aid from Scriptural schools, because it was possible that there might be instances where Protestant children might be benefited by the grant, and at the same time should increase fivefold the aid given to a collegiate system which was not Scriptural, with the certainty that none but Roman Catholic priests could benefit by it? Pie was encouraged to believe that the measure of 1829 was to put an end for ever to legislation for sects or parties. Roman Catholics swore that they would not disturb old institutions or endowments. Now institutions, if established, were to be formed for the benefit of the people, not for a sect. This was what he understood to be the good derived from the measure. Were we now, he would ask, legislating as if such a promise had been kept? He would say No. He could understand a continuance of the usual grants; he could understand an enlarged grant, for purposes of education, in which persons of all denominations could freely participate; but he could not discover the wisdom or the justice of the policy which withdrew all the aid from schools in which the Bible was freely read, and heaped a fivefold bounty on Maynooth—perpetuated an exclusive system of education—a system not merely suspected but accused, on evidence which had never been contradicted, of circulating principles and fostering a spirit which it ought to be the object of every good Government, as at present the wish of every honest man, to discountenance and extinguish. With regard to the compact which it was endeavoured to 703 persuade the House was entered into at the time of the Union, and by which we were told we were bound, he (Colonel Verner) felt it unnecessary to make a single observation; as it appeared to him (Colonel Verner), notwithstanding the opinion expressed by the Member for Newark, and the quotation he read to the House, that it had been fully and satisfactorily proved that no such compact existed. He could not avoid calling the attention of the House to another subject, and he did so with very great regret. He could not help observing, that in all the measures which had been of late brought before the House, connected with Ireland—in all the debates which had taken place upon those measures—there was a cautious avoidance, a studied omission of all allusion to the Protestants of that country. It would seem to him as if they were considered to be undeserving the notice of the Legislature, or as if they constituted so insignificant or so small a portion of the people of that country, that their rights, their wants, or their injuries, were matters of little or no importance; but when he remembered the many years he had been a witness to the state of Ireland—when he remembered, during that period, the many important services the Protestants had rendered to the country—their unshaken loyalty, their fidelity to their Sovereign, their obedience to the laws and to the authorities, and their unalterable attachment to British connexion—when he recollected all this, and then contrasted it with the conduct of those for whom they were now called upon to vote the public money—he could not help feeling that this was not the treatment they deserved, and that he ought not to allow this Bill to pass without raising his voice in defence of the Protestants of Ireland. He expected to have heard from the right hon. Baronet some grounds for bringing forward this measure; he expected to have heard at least that some of the heads or leaders, or influential members of the Roman Catholic body, had come to the right hon. Gentleman, and satisfied him that however their political views might differ, they were both actuated with the same feelings with regard to the promotion of the peace of Ireland, and both equally anxious to put down agitation. But, no; neither in this House nor out of it, had there been one solitary instance of an individual, lay, or clerical, expressing as much as regret at the state of Ireland, at a time when it became necessary to pour troops 704 into that country to protect the lives of its peaceable and well disposed inhabitants; and he verily believed there were none who stood more in need of that protection than the Roman Catholics themselves, thousands of whom dared not refuse to join in the monster meetings, as they were called, and who, he believed, were as much opposed to them as any other persons whatever in the country. Was not the Loyal Repeal Association continuing its meetings at this moment, and issuing its orders to the Members of this House with regard to the measures they thought proper to direct them to support? Within the last week, he himself had received two Resolutions passed by that body, which were to direct the conduct of Members as to the course they were to take in this House. And who, he would beg leave to ask, were the chief persons connected with that Association? The priests, those very persons in aid of whom they were now called upon to endow a College. And who were their chiefs and leaders? The Roman Catholic-Bishops—so said the organ of the Roman Catholic body—and no man knows better; but it was not his word alone they had—they had the declaration of those bishops and clergy to the same effect over and over again. He need not remind the House for what purpose this Association held its meetings. Every Member whom he had the honour to address knew as well as he did that separation from this country was their avowed object. His hon. Friend the Member for Dublin had, upon a former night, alluded to an observation made by Mr. O'Connell, when he heard of the provisions of the Bill about to be introduced by the right hon. Baronet. He would also quote the concluding sentence of a speech, delivered by the same Gentleman upon another occasion. His words were, "Hurrah for Peel and Repeal!" He would ask, could any person entertain a doubt as to what Mr. O'Connell meant? Was there an hon. Member in the House who did not know full well, that the meaning it was intended to convey was, that Mr. O'Connell looked on this Bill as one step more towards Repeal. Then he would ask the right hon. Baronet how he could call upon the Protestants of Ireland to support such a measure at such a time? The boon which the right hon. Baronet was about to force upon the Roman Catholics would not satisfy them—it would create, if possible stronger feelings of suspicion and discontent upon the part of the Protestants. 705 They already felt they were deserted by those in whom they placed most confidence—they felt that they had few friends left to defend or protect them. They at one time dissolved their society, a society which could count amongst its ranks some, aye, many of the first noblemen and gentlemen in the three kingdoms. They dissolved their society at the bidding of their Sovereign without hesitation, and without a murmur. He hoped not, but he could not help fearing that the time would soon come, when the services of that society would be as much required as they were at any former period. Self-preservation he had always understood to be one of the first impulses of our nature; and when the Protestants of Ireland found themselves deserted, abandoned, and betrayed, he hoped they would not be considered as deserving of censure, if they again re-united for their mutual protection.
§ Mr. Humewas anxious to offer his opinion upon a subject which interested the country so deeply. He had paid considerable attention to the state of Ireland, and, therefore, desired to state the view he entertained in reference to the measure brought forward by the right hon. Baronet. The spirit of the hon. Gentleman (Major Beresford), who had begun this debate to-night, afforded a specimen of what the Irish Protestant was—a specimen of the opinions entertained by the class to which the hon. Gentleman belonged. The hon. Gentleman, who had just taken his seat, called upon them to recollect what had been the state of Ireland. The hon. Member had told them, and told them truly, and he recollected more, perhaps, than most of them in the House upon that subject—of the proceedings and transactions in that country, which every hon. Gentleman in that House must regret had ever taken place. Now what was the policy which the right hon. Baronet intended to pursue towards Ireland? The object of that policy was to remove the just grounds of complaint which existed on the part of the Roman Catholics for the injustice which had been exercised towards them. It was intended that Acts should be removed which had been always considered as acts of oppression. Such a course would put an end to the possibility of such scenes taking place as the hon. and gallant Gentleman stated to have taken place almost every year during the last century. It was because such was 706 the object and tendency of the right hon. Baronet's measure that he would give his support to the Bill. It was because it was one of those measures which had been announced last year, and which, it was promised, would be measures of conciliation, and such as would remove the obstacles which existed to the pacifying the great majority of the Irish people, who had hitherto been in a state of great disquiet, that he would cordially support it. The course which the right hon. Baronet was now pursuing was not new. Did not the right hon. Baronet commence last year? Two measures, one of which was the Dissenters Chapels Bill, had been introduced by the Government, and sanctioned by the Legislature. To both of these he had given his support. The Dissenters Chapels Bill he regarded as an excellent measure: and now that it had passed and become law, he looked back with satisfaction to the support which he had given to that measure—a measure which he considered as of great importance to the country, and which would yet be productive of much more real good than any one perhaps at present anticipated. What, then, was the next measure? The Charitable Bequests Bill—a Bill which, he regretted to say, had not been received by the Catholics in that spirit he could have wished, nor that it really deserved. He remembered Mr. O'Connell declaring, in 1830, his opinion, that if the Roman Catholics were given the partial direction of their charities the greatest advantages would follow from it. By the Bequests Bill, not only was an equality given to the Roman Catholics, but there was the chance of a majority for them amongst the Commissioners. Yet, he was sorry to say, such a measure had not been received in that spirit he had hoped for, and in which he believed it had been tendered. This was, then, the third measure. He rejoiced to see it proposed, because he considered that it was calculated to allay discontent in Ireland. The hon. and gallant Officer who last had addressed himself to the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, had asked of him to see how Conciliation Hall would deal with these measures. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not pay the least attention to any such suggestion. Let the right hon. Gentleman do justice, and he need not pay any attention to the opinions of individuals. Let him perform his task by securing peace, and 707 he need not care for the discontent of a few. Upon this subject the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Shaw) had made a strong appeal to the right hon. Baronet. The right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to be generally calm and sedate in his manner; but on this point he was seriously agitated, and, in his opinion, took a most erroneous view of the question. The right hon. and learned Gentleman regarded it as a religious question. He, on the contrary, did not esteem it to be any such thing. It was a mere question of policy. It was the duty of the Government so to regard it, and so to proceed with it. He was sorry, upon such a question, and at such a time, to find the cry of "Church in danger"—the "No Popery" cry again raised, and the opinion again put forth, that Catholics could not be permitted to be placed on an equality with Protestants. Such sentiments carried them back for two centuries—to that period in their history when Protestants felt themselves called upon, by any and by every means, to defend themselves against the power then possessed by the Catholic Church. What danger, he wished to know, could now follow from having any connexion with the Pope? He believed that the alarm felt upon religious grounds was utterly unfounded. He believed that no men could live satisfactorily with each other in the same country, unless there was an equality of civil rights, and something too like decency and forbearance exhibited towards each other. Believing this, be asked them to look at the situation of Ireland, to see the position in which the Catholics were placed there, to ask themselves would they be satisfied, as a people, if their condition was similar to that of the people of Ireland? He had often said, and repeated the sentiment many years ago, that if he had been an Irishman and a Catholic, he would have been amongst the first, the most ardent, the most zealous, and the most unflinching in his resistance to that system of oppression which was so long maintained and so cruelly continued. He considered that all subjects of the British Crown were entitled, as a right, to equal laws and equal privileges; and on those grounds alone he maintained that discontent existed, and discontent must be continued as long as they were refused to any one class of men. He had heard Mr. O'Connell from that very 708 Bench, say, that the best way to satisfy Ireland was to remove the causes of her discontent. The sentiment was as true as it was just; it was as just as it was wise to act upon it. He held, then, this measure as one step in the right direction. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite seemed to dissent from this opinion; he seemed to think that passing such a measure as this would be adding to the difficulties of Ireland. How that could be he could not understand; for he believed that placing the teachers of the Roman Catholics in a better situation, rendering them better able to perform the duties of their sacred calling, and capacitating them the more suitably to conduct their parishioners, and instil into them sentiments of morality, must be in itself a most important national benefit. Some, however, complained of the conduct of the Irish priests. It was, he must say, a matter of astonishment to him, how upon such a moderate, such a scanty pittance as had been allowed to them, the Irish were able to bring up their clergy to fill the responsible situations of parish priests. He believed, that by giving them assistance to produce an enlightened and intelligent priesthood, they would have men better able not only to teach their flocks, but by that very means to improve the condition of the people of Ireland. Let them, he said, when they treated of the affairs of Ireland, consider what had been their policy in India, and imitate it. Let them recollect that there were various sects within that vast extent of India which was submitted to their rule, and there due regard was paid to the religious ceremonies of each sect. Every sect was treated with due respect, and they allowed to each the means of giving education to the teachers of the particular sects. The consequence was, that the greatest satisfaction and the most perfect contentment prevailed. In India they had the proof of the course that ought to be pursued in Ireland. In India they saw a small number of British settlers governing an immense empire, and governing it well. It was a marvel how, by so few in number, the many could be controlled, governed and directed — how quiet, how peaceable, and how well behaved were the many. Why was this? Because the interests of the community were attended to—because no sectarian feeling influenced their political proceedings. It 709 was by this course, and this course alone, that a few Englishmen were able to govern India. Let them look, then, to see how religion was provided for in India. He would begin with the Church of England. The total expenditure of the Episcopalian Church in Bengal, in 1827, was 40,000l., and in Bombay, 20,000l., whilst the Mahomedan and Hindoo religions were also in pan supported. One of the acts that attached most credit to the government of the Marquess Wellesley, was the establishment of the Hindoo College. Now, if they had followed in India that course of policy which had been so constantly pursued in Ireland, the result must have been that their empires must be but of a few years duration And whatever might be said of the India Company, there was certainly a desire on the part of its servants to do their duties justly and fairly. In India did they refuse assistance to the Roman Catholics? Far from it. The Homan Catholic Church was also aided by the Indian Government, In 1831, the Bombay Government gave 2,000l. to repair the principal Catholic church in Bombay, which they had built in 1804 At Surat, the Roman Catholic church received forty rupees monthly, and the Indian Government had assisted to build Catholic churches in Baroda, Bassein, Malwan, Vingozula, and Kiziadroog; in fact, whenever there was a sufficient number of Catholics to form a congregation, there an allowance was given. The result was, the contentment of the population. It was not, however, only the Indian Government that displayed this proper spirit towards those whose religious opinions were different from those of the ruling Sovereign. The Mahomedan and Hindoo rulers frequently paid for the support of the priests of the Christians. The oldest Roman Catholic church in Bombay was erected in 1624. It received 126 rupees monthly from the Nawab of Surat, by virtue of a warrant from the Emperor of Delhi. The Ranee Travancore gave 20,000 rupees a year, in 1815, for the religious instruction of the Syrian Christians, who were more numerous in that part of India than any oilier sect of Christians. But then, the hon. Baronet opposite said he would never contribute to the promotion of error. He was sorry to hear such a sentiment from one whose father, as a member of the Court of Directors, had attended so much to the 710 moral and religious education of the native Indians. He was sure that it was not from his parent such a lesson had been learned, for he had been one remarks able for his kindness and tenderness towards the feelings of others. It was his opinion that they ought to be ashamed to find themselves exceeded in benevolence and kindness by Pagans. Let them consider the situation in which Ireland was placed. If they had conquered Ireland on the first of last January, instead of having conquered it six hundred years ago, would any man of common sense now think of depriving Ireland of a fund for her religious teachers? Much as they might regret the Irish being Roman Catholics, they never would think of taking from them the means of supporting their clergy. They had not done this wish Canada. He had the means of showing that they had not done this with other parts of the Empire. According to a Return moved for by Lord Ashley in 1839, and which was now on the Table, it would be found that the Colonial churches received 134,000l. The Church of Scotland was paid 9,900l. the Dutch Church, 6,800l., and the Church of Rome, 14,763l. At the Cape of Good Hope they paid for other Churches than the Episcopalian Church; in Jamaica the Baptists had 600l., and they even paid for a Jewish synagogue. In every part of their territory they supported persons of different religious persuasions. By their doing so, there was contentment. If they pursued an opposite course, the result would be the same as it was in Ireland—discontent and dissatisfaction. But now, when the means were proposed for removing discontent, they had the hon. and gallant Colonel opposite (Colonel Verner) threatening them with a union of some kind; but whether it was to be a revival of the Orange Lodges, the gallant Gentleman had not told them. He would tell the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) not to mind such threats; he said to him do justice, and he need not be afraid of ill-will or faction: neither could harm him. He held it to be the duty of a Government to the people, whatever might be their religious opinions, to do them justice. To do, not as they had done, but as they ought to do in Ireland—to change the system—to adopt a good one, and the results must be beneficial. Another reason why he thought Ireland was now fairly a claimant for a large concession of justice was, that 711 she had been long wronged and long injured. The squabble that had been so long going on in Ireland was net one for religious doctrines, but it was a squabble for a large amount of public property; and he was sorry to see, amongst those who opposed the present grant, some whose families had risen by the allocation to themselves of that property which had once belonged to the Catholic Church. He passed that topic by, however. He was not disposed to dwell upon it at the present moment. This he could not but remark, that the Irish were not disposed to be discontented. If they were now discontented, it was because they felt they had been wronged. Men in all countries were disposed to obey the ruling powers, unless such insults were offered to them, and such wrongs done to them, that they could no longer bear them. Ireland was so treated. Ireland was discontented; Ireland must be discontented, therefore, like every other oppressed country, as long as justice was denied to her. In England the Established Church was the Church of the majority. In Scotland the State provided the means for maintaining the clergy—public property was assigned to; them; but in Ireland they took the whole of the public property for the maintenance of a national clergy, and they give it to a small portion of the population. That, he believed, was the greatest cause for complaint in Ireland. The right hon. Baronet proposed in some degree to remedy the evil; and then he was upbraided—charges were preferred against him, and epithets applied to him, which he thought were little creditable to those who used them. He was not one much attached to party; except so far as patty promoted the principles he wished to see carried into successful operation. He was prepared, therefore, to take from either hand that which was good. He would not refuse a good thing now, bcause a number of years ago the right hon. Baronet was not prepared to propose it. What! was it because the tight hon. Baronet was four years ago in error, and that be was now convinced he had been wrong—because four years ago he had sanctioned some measures different from the present—that it was to be said of him that he had acted improperly and discreditably in proposing this grant? What would those, who made such an objection, say of St. Paul, who, from being a persecutor up to a certain time, at length was 712 convinced of his error, and became an apostle of the true faith? He felt a strong objection to the taking this money from the Consolidated Fund. Such a proposition made him feel a deep regret that they had not been able to carry the Appropriation Clause some years ago. Had they done so, there would now be an ample and sufficient fund for such purposes as the present. There was a saving of 134,000l. from the abolition of unnecessary bishoprics and unwise sinecures in the Protestant Church in Ireland. He thought they ought not to take the money from the Consolidated Fund; but if the Church funds were not at present sufficient, let them take from the Consolidated Fund until the surplus revenues of the Protestant Church could meet this demand upon them. He repeated that this was not a religious question — that so far from the Church being endangered by it, it would be in a better situation than it was at present. He considered that this was sound policy—that it was an act of justice; that it was one the people of Ireland had a right to demand, and that they were bound to yield. It was an act of justice—it was not concession—for the people were entitled to have the means of giving religious education to their teachers. It was a measure proposed in a good spirit; he supported it, and he trusted it would be triumphantly carried.
§ Mr. Newdegatesaid, that having, from his firs; entrance into that House consistency opposed the grant to Maynooth, he was anxious to give his reasons for that course which, indeed, applied still more strongly to the present measure. It could not be supposed but that almost immediately after having been returned with the view of generally supporting the present Government, his determination to oppose them on this subject had cost him great pain, nor had he arrived at that conclusion without deep thought and consideration. He could not say that the hon. Member for Montrose had done much to weaken his determination. He could not consider the question apart from religion, nor did he think that the hon. Member had taken a line of argument calculated to promote that desirable object which the hon. Member seemed to have in view — to reconcile conflicting parties, and to soften the differences which existed on this question; for the hon. Member had compared the Roman Catholic religion with the idola- 713 trous religions of India. ["No."] The hon. Member had certainly said that, as we contributed to the support of the latter, we ought to contribute to the former; but he could not think of Catholicism in the same light with idolatry. Who could believe that those who were ornaments of that House, representing Roman Catholic constituencies, Roman Catholics themselves, were benighted as to the truths which they believed essential to salvation? But, at the same time, the Catholic Church took a latitude in teaching the ignorant which could not be justified; one of its maxims was, "Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur." Was it then right to appropriate without inquiry to an institution for teaching, they knew not what, the funds of this great country? Not only are we forbidden to inquire, but we are expected to act in defiance of experience. Mr. Pitt's experiment with respect to the Establishment of Maynooth had signally failed; of that there was no question; yet upon that experiment, and the past liberality of Parliament, a plea of compact or virtual engagement had been set up. He (Mr. Newdegate) would not without good cause have been willing to withdraw funds upon which parties had been accustomed to depend; and he had certainly been inclined to think that there was some shadow of a compact up to the year 1821; since then even that shadow had vanished. Might he not ask then, to what was the failure of this experiment in regard to Maynooth owing? That failure was owing to the withholding of all voluntary contribution by the Roman Catholics themselves, upon which contribution Mr. Pitt had calculated. The Roman Catholic Church, exclusive in its doctrines, would not allow the Government to give part, and themselves provide the rest, because it would involve them in a suspicion that the Government claimed some interference in their management of the College; if that was the system of the Roman Catholic Church, then, he said, the Roman Catholic Church precluded itself from our assistance. He regretted that that system should be the means of exciting angry feelings; but that very circumstance made him deprecate the more earnestly the introduction of this measure at the present moment, when it certainly seemed most inexpedient to add internal dissension to external danger. But suppose that the hon. Member for Marylebone was right in his anti- 714 cipations of war with America, who were to blame for having at such a time excited feelings of animosity between the people of England and of Ireland? Those who, in defiance of the strong feelings and opinions of their own supporters, had forced on this measure at such a crisis. If danger from this combination of circumstances arose, he cast the whole responsibility of it upon Her Majesty's Ministers. He had listened most attentively to all the arguments in support of the measure. What were they? It was said, "Place the students at Maynooth in easy circumstances, and their recollections of Maynooth will dispose them favourably to this country." But could it be believed that those easy circumstances would have any effect upon the minds of men who were educated in habits of ascetic privation, and taught to regard the use of comforts as a sin? And if such circumstances could unite the priests more firmly to England, would not the enjoyment of them at the same time deprive them of the confidence of their fellow-countrymen? It had been said that to doubt the gratitude of Irishmen for this boon was to exhibit a distrust of Ireland quite unjustifiable. He did not doubt their gratitude; he did not doubt that at first a friendly feeling would be aroused by this measure; but ere long the effect of it would wear out; for sincere Roman Catholics must be jealous of assistance given to any other sect, since they believe that doctrines other than their own, lend to the eternal detriment of those who hold them: and their gratitude would soon be lost in other feelings. It might be urged that these feelings were not common to all Roman Catholics—that they were entertained only by a sect. But he believed that it was for the education and maintenance of priests in the doctrines of the most rigid and the most political sect of Romanists, that this grant, if made, would be devoted. And this made him think it the more unreasonable, that they were called upon to make this grant without inquiry. They had very little information respecting the College of Maynooth before them; but they had some. It appeared from the Report respecting Maynooth some years since laid before that House, that the Gallican Articles were not professed by those educated at Maynooth. The late President of the College stated that the teaching was the same as at Lisbon; and another professor that it 715 was the same as at Palermo, which was a Jesuit College. Even so late as the 3rd of the present month, at a meeting of the Priests' Protection Society, over which Lord Roden presided, the Rev. William Burke stated that the Roman Catholic priests at Maynooth were educated in the ultra Montane or Italian doctrine of intolerance; and this gentleman had been himself educated at Maynooth. May we not fairly infer, then, that the Italian doctrines—those of the Jesuits—are inculcated at Maynooth. It is never easy to penetrate the mysterious secrecy in which that order envelopes its proceedings. In this country, for many reasons, it is their policy not to attract public attention; and yet a recent meeting, held by the Roman Catholic institute, appeared, by the report in the Times, to have been addressed by the Provincial of the Jesuits. Now, in the Bill of 1829, there were provisions for registering any persons of the order of Jesuits, or of any other of the known orders of the Roman Catholic Church, and for making an annual Return of them to that House; but he found that no such Return had been made since 1836, when the Return stated that there was no such person in England or Wales, excepting Flintshire; though from Ireland there was a Return of a considerable number of such persons. He thought, however, that that Return ought to be made annually; it might be as well to know how many persons of that class there were altogether in this country; for, from circumstances to which he would presently allude, it was evident their numbers were considerable. Then an argument had been raised upon the poverty of Ireland; and the right hon. Baronet had painted a glowing picture of the destitution of that country and of Maynooth; but he thought there was great weight in the observations of the hon. Member for Wickham, when he asked how it was that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were able to subscribe their 10,000l. to the Society of the Propaganda of Lyons? That was an index to the policy which the Church of Rome had always pursued. Ireland was already converted; and now her efforts were directed elsewhere—principally to England. The Roman Church calculated, that if her institutions in Ireland were left destitute, their condition would meet with—commiseration he was about to say—but with liberality on the 716 part of the British Parliament. She would fain have connexion with the State, therefore she left her Irish institutions destitute; and it appeared her policy would prove successful. These reflections were forced upon him by the circumstances of the district which he represented. On the south of it the Convent of Princethorpe had arisen—large in extent—numerously occupied—amply provided; on the east, the Trappist Monastery of Gracedieu raised its head from Bardon Hill; nearer to the centre of that district a convent had been founded at Atherstone, and was at once tenanted; on the west, Oscot College gave the lie to the assertion that Roman Catholicism cannot educate her priests without national assistance; whilst Birmingham has its Roman Catholic cathedral; throughout the whole district, churches everywhere—schools and priests—were maintained at an expense far greater than the Roman Catholics of that district could themselves maintain; and this is but one instance of what is happening throughout England. Was this poverty, or was it Propagandism? If the Roman Catholics wholly neglected the education of their own priests in Ireland, was it not remarkable that they should appear possessed of such ample means in England? Did it not show what their policy was? Ireland was converted, and England was now the scene of their exertions; and what were the Government about to do? They were about to support the most active pioneers of a faith which they believed to be wholly mistaken. Was there not danger to the public peace? Was there not danger of entailing future dissensions of the gravest character, by adopting; such a policy? What had brought Switzerland to her present distracted state? The attempt to commit the education of her people to the Jesuits. Let it not be thought he would justify the action of the Free Corps; that movement was anarchical, and opposed to every principle he held; but it was the unhappy consequence of the Government's having violated the religious feelings, and having endangered the religious freedom of a people who felt deeply on these subjects. He had a right to appeal to the decision of the Swiss Diet, as indicating the feelings of the Swiss in the most legitimate manner—and what was that decision? Why, the majority of the States of the Diet were determined to resist the commission of their education to 717 Jesuits, whose exclusive doctrines they abjured; and who in other countries had proved themselves to be arrant disturbers of the public peace. The objection to them was, that they bore in their constitution the elements of a secret society. True, the majority was not sufficient to make its decision federal law; but the majority wanted so little to give it effect, as to render it almost as strong a criterion of opinion, as though it had carried that opinion into law. He might be called a bigot, he might be accused of raising angry feelings; but he cast the whole blame upon those who, by this measure, had insulted the feelings of their supporters, and knew that those feelings were deeply rooted in their breasts. Formerly he had aided the Government as far as he could, by word, thought, and action, and little did he expect to see the result which had now happened. Was there a question that the Roman Catholic religion could amply support itself without this grant? If any such plea were raised, it might be worth listening to; but there was no foundation for any such argument. It had been said that the conduct of a Protestant landlord, who had provided means of devotion for his Roman Catholic tenants, presented a good example of what ought to be the conduct of the Government of the country to its Irish subjects; but in the first place, the landlord was not the ruler or the guide of his tenants; a landlord might do right in building a chapel for his tenants, if they had already been converted; but it was quite a different thing for a Government to foster and encourage the means of conversion to a faith considered by them erroneous. It had been urged that Protestantism was a vague indefinite term, involving only a negative; but a negative term was more than any defined in that which it denied. And he was of opinion, therefore, that Protestantism afforded justifiable bond of union for the opponents of this measure. What was the meaning of the word Protestant? What was that against which all sects of Protestants in common protested? What was it against which the constitution of this country protested? Nothing more nor less than the Roman Catholic doctrine. In common they deprecated that exclusive doctrine; in common they resisted domestic and civil interference on the part of the clergy, as exercised by the Roman 718 Catholic priesthood; in common they claimed for all men free access to the Scriptures; in common they claimed for all men perfect freedom of conscience. In maintaining those views he could see nothing inconsistent, nothing wrong in Churchmen uniting with any class of their fellow-Protestants. For one, he would compromise himself by no course but the most direct on so important an occasion.
§ Mr. Pakingtonsaid, he quite agreed with his hon. Friend who had just sat down, that it was not possible, nor indeed desirable, to exclude religious considerations from the discussion of this measure; but, he thought his hon. Friend had by no means succeeded in showing that the Roman Catholics of Ireland were themselves able to supply the 17,00l. per annum, which was necessary to place the College of Maynooth upon a respectable footing. His hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Major Beresford), had expressed apprehensions as to the effect this measure might have upon the Irish Established Church; and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Armagh (Colonel Verner) had alluded to the necessity of supporting the Irish Protestants. He would not yield to those hon. Gentlemen, either in zeal for the fair support of the Irish Church, or in admiration of the high character and known loyalty of the Irish Protestants; but, he thought, that neither of those hon. Members had addressed themselves to the argument whether or not the Protestants and the Established Church in Ireland would not be in a better position to defend their rights after they had endeavoured to concede everything that could in justice or liberality be demanded. He must say he was sorry to bear the narrow party views on which the right hon. Member for Edinburgh had argued this question. As a Member of that party which had opposed the late Government, he thought the charges of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh were altogether unfounded. He had charged them that when they were in opposition they had made the "No-Popery" cry one of the means for unseating the late Government. Now, he denied that charge altogether. It was true, that when in opposition they had raised the cry of "Defend the Church," when they thought it was in danger, more particularly on the subject of education; 719 and under similar circumstances he was prepared to do so again; but he denied that the late Opposition, or their leaders, had raised the "No Popery" cry for the purpose of unseating the late Administration. There was another argument he had heard with much surprise—namely, that the measure lost much of its grace, if not of its utility, from the character of the party by whom it was brought forward. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire, indeed, had asked what right the present Government had to bring it forward? He must say, he thought it an unworthy mode of treating this question to oppose it on such grounds, instead of dealing with it upon its own merits. But looking at the history of the last fifteen or sixteen years, and considering that during ten years of that period the late Government had held office without attempting to improve the defective establishment at Maynooth, while the present Government were those who had carried Catholic Emancipation, he thought there was no Government or party in this country by whom this measure could be brought forward with more grace or propriety. Another argument which had been used by the right hon. Member for the University of Dublin and others was, that they ought to oppose this measure because it was but the forerunner of others still more objectionable He would not say that this was an unfair argument; but he must say, especially as it had been resorted to by so many speakers, that he thought it a very feeble one. He said again they should deal with this question on its own merits, and not upon contingencies. He was truly sorry to differ on a question of this nature from his hon. and respected Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir R. Inglis), and from his hon. Friend the Member for Kent (Mr. Plumptre); but after the strong language used by the hon. Member for Kent (Mr. Plumptre), he felt bound to say, that while he would not yield to any one in sincere devotion to the Church of which he was a member, he did not think it inconsistent with his duty to that Church to give this measure his support; not a cold or hesitating support—not a reluctant support extorted by the strength of party ties—but a cordial and willing support, founded upon deep conviction; first that they must not venture to leave Maynooth on its present footing; and, se- 720 condly, that this measure was called for as a step in that wise and conciliatory policy towards Ireland which every Government should attempt to carry out. There was no part of the speech of the right hon. Baronet, when he introduced this question, in which he concurred so entirely as that in which he said, that of all courses they could take, the worst would be to leave things as they were. It was his sincere conviction, and he hoped he might express it without offence, that in its present state, whether they regarded it on social, political, or religious grounds, Maynooth was one of the greatest evils under which Ireland had suffered. He feared also, that these evils were not limited to Ireland. He feared they might be found in operation in our Colonies, and that it would not be difficult for him to name Colonies in which serious evils might be traced to the defective system of education at the College of Maynooth. He might, perhaps, be accused of inconsistency on this question; for, although he had never voted against the annual grant, he admitted there had been a time when he thought prospectively the grant to Maynooth might be withdrawn. But after the debate in 1841, which was brought forward by the hon. Member for Newcastle, the attention of Parliament had been more directed to the subject; and from that time he had ever thought that it would not be just or honourable in the Parliament of this country, so to sever the connexion now existing, and that the only fair policy would be forthwith to ameliorate the condition of this establishment. With these views he had never heard of an announcement with greater satisfaction than he heard of the notification of the right hon. Baronet at the close of last Session, that it was the intention of the Government to bring forward some measure of amelioration. He would not detain the House by again reading that extract from the speech of Mr. Perceval in 1812, which had been already quoted by his right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Gladstone); but he would contend, if such were the opinions at that day of Mr. Perceval, with his known bias, how much more impossible must it be now to violate what had been well called our moral obligation upon this subject, not only after such a lapse of time, but after the course of legislation which had intervened, including the fresh measure 721 of Roman Catholic Emancipation. How much more difficult would it now be to retrace their steps, and say they would sever all connexion with a Catholic Establishment. The only fair and prudent course left open was the policy adopted by Government, to endeavour to make the College of Maynooth effective. Such a course had been attempted, and he would not bring himself to believe that it could fail. He would not believe that the great proposition of Her Majesty's Ministers would be met by the Roman Catholics of Ireland in any other than a spirit of gratitude, or be regarded by them in any other light than a measure of liberality and conciliation on the part of the Government. They might not find improvement in the first year or the year after, yet looking at the recognised principles of human nature, if a class of persons were improved, and if they were educated in a more efficient manner, the rational result would be as had been expressed by the right hon. Member for Newark in his admirable speech, that this course would have a softening effect on the system. These were the sentiments which led him to give his support to the course recommended by Her Majesty's Government. He thought Her Majesty's Government might fairly be congratulated on the success which had attended their Irish policy. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had on one occasion, just before he took office, alluded to Ireland as his chief difficulty; but such had been the policy of the right hon. Baronet with regard to Ireland—firm and vigorous on the one hand, generous and conciliatory on the other—that he thought the time would soon come, if it had not already arrived, when Government could turn to Ireland as the subject of their best and proudest triumph. Before he sat down, he must express his hope, that while he cordially supported this liberal course towards their Roman Catholic fellow-Christians—there were some who seemed scarcely to regard them as fellow-Christians—the religious destitution of the Protestant members of the Church of England both at home and abroad, would no longer be overlooked by either the Government or the House. Her Majesty's Ministers should recollect, while doing this act of justice to Ireland, that they had other duties no less binding—other obligations no less sacred—they 722 sent forth annually thousands of destitute emigrants and wretched convicts to our Colonies; and when any fair and reasonable claims for assistance to our Protestant fellow-subjects might hereafter be made, he trusted they would not again be met in a sprit of illiberal objection by the House, or cold refusal by the Government. He would no longer detain the House than to express his earnest hope and prayer that this conciliatory measure might be productive of every good and healing effect which could be intended or hoped for by its authors.
§ Mr. P. M. Stewartwould not presume to answer any hostile remarks made by the hon. Member for Droitwich on the able and unanswerable speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh; but as there was a part of that hon. Member's remarks which related to other hon. Members, and which had reference to the two great parties into which the country was divided, he would venture to trespass on the House for a very few minutes. The hon. Member stated that in the electioneering contest, in 1841, no weapon was used by the Conservative party, such as the "No-Popery" cry. The hon. Member had evidently forgotten, or had thrown away one of the most powerful weapons of Conservative politics used by his party at the election. He did not charge the hon. Member himself with having used that weapon; but he wished he could cite there the Conservative constituencies throughout the country to bear him out in the assertion that "the Church in danger" was the weapon used by the party opposite throughout the country for the purpose of turning out the late Ministry, and placing themselves in power. They could not have forgotten that it was said of the proposition of the late Government as to the Irish Church that it was "a heavy blow and great discouragement to the Protestant religion." At all events, he knew that this weapon was used, and with great effect, at the elections against the party with which he was connected. The hon. Member said the measure ought to be tried on its own merits, and that a distinction ought not to be drawn between measures and men. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh declared that the country had a deep interest in the characters of public men, and though this measure should have his support, he 723 must nevertheless look at the men who introduced it, who, when out of office, opposed it—for if the measure was right in principle now, it must have been doubly right then. Though differing from many hon. Gentlemen in their arguments against the measure, he yet hoped it would not resell the Statute book; but if it did reach the Statute book he hoped the House would not let it do so under false pretences. He had not heard the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel); but he had read the speech, and he gathered from it that the right hon. Baronet declared the measure involved no question of principle, and no minor points of detail; but in his (Mr. P. Stewart's) opinion, there was no measure introduced into the House which more deeply involved a direct and important principle than this Bill. It was urged that since 1795 the grant of 9,000l. to Maynooth had been sessionally agreed to. But the proposition was not now for 9,000l. or for three times 9,000l., a propos it on which would neither decide nor involve any principle. This Bill was to remove the annual grant from out of the reach of Parliament, and to give simultaneously 30,000l. for building purposes. Instead of leaving the grant to be annually considered by Parliament, Government were intoducing an Act of Parliament and a binding Statute which was to put this grant effectually out of the reach of Parliament. Did not this measure, then, involve a question of principle? The country at least so judged of the measure, and it judged rightly, he thought. They were going to substitute for an administrative Act of each Session, a fixed plan by a Statute which would thus become a part of the Constitution of the Kingdom, and in doing this he held that it was in violation of the protestation which the nation had made against Popery at the Reformation. It was curious to remark the qualified reasons for supporting the measure assigned by many hon. Members. How, for instance, did the right hon. Member for Newark relieve himself from responsibility on this question? He said he deprecated the principle of the Bill—he was fearful of the consequences, but he was not answerable for them. Was that the way in which an all-but Member of the Cabinet should recommend and support a measure of this nature? The hon. Member for Bath brought forward 724 stirring, pungent, and pointed arguments in favour of the Bill, and against those who dared to differ from him; but how did the hon. Member qualify his support? He said, had this been the first proposal of the sort, and had the House not been in the habit of granting the Maynooth vote annually, he would not have supported it. This was the qualified support the measure received from the hon. Member for Bath. Then there was the hon. Member for Lambeth, how did he qualify his vote? The hon. Member said, "I applaud the measure — the principle is perfect—but unless the funds to pay the College be drawn from the source pointed out by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and unless the measure leads us towards the end aimed at by the hon. Member for Sheffield, then I cannot approve of the Bill." The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland said, "You tell us it is useless to meddle with the question, and that it is best to leave well alone;" and the right hon. Gentleman—he would pardon him for the word—had the effrontery to tell the House. "But there is no 'well' in Ireland to let alone." He would ask the right hon. Gentleman was there no well in Ireland in 1841, when the reins of government were given up by the late Government, and assumed by the present? In his humble opinion, looking at the ordinary tests and proofs of prosperity, Ireland since the time of Henry II., since the twelfth century, never was in so prosperous a state as to its general interests as at the time when the late Government gave over the seals of office to the present Ministry. Take the common tests, the rise in the value of property and the fall in the rate of interest—tests which afforded a general conviction of the security and the peace of a country. If tested that way, Ireland would be found never to have been in such a state of prosperity as in the year 1841. The present Bill was uncalled for—it was entirely unlocked for by the country at large—it was startling to all, and more especially considering the quarter from whence it came. It was brought forward to cure a grievance of which the Roman Catholics never complained. The House had always listened with sympathy and attention to the catalogue of grievances which was but too heavy in Ireland; but even in the admirable speech of the Member for Waterford in 725 reference to the improvement of Maynooth, he had never heard this grievance included in the list. The Roman Catholics of Ireland were too intelligent to make that a ground of grievance which they but shared with Protestant Dissenters at large. Then, let the House look at the measure as a measure of pacification, what was it they saw? It was improper for a Member so humble as himself to go into motives of Ministers, but he could not help saying that had the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) foreseen the way in which this Bill had been received here and in Ireland, he never would have involved the House in the present interminable debate on the merits or demerits of his measure. What had they recently collected from Mr. O'Connell's speech—a speech in which the hon. Gentleman had shown no falling off in powers, and no cooling of his ardour in the cause of his country? That hon. Gentleman was reported to have said, in reference to this measure, "This is the first fruits of fear, but not the last, for we shall next have Repeal itself." The hon. Member went on to say, "It was a boon to misbehave, and we will continue our behaviour, for we are beginning to reap the fruits of it." What he would ask, must be the effect of this Bill on the Irish people, so interpreted by their leader? In this country we were already beginning to see what that effect was likely to be—the destruction of peace and harmony here, and, if not a mere dead letter in Ireland, provocative of nothing but distrust and disturbance there. The public ask how reconciliation and union were to be accomplished by this measure, when they see the fruits of it already are increased agitation in Ireland? As a Scotchman, he almost regretted that in his own quiet country the same system of agitation had not been adopted. But the truth was, Government thought the Scottish people so passive and peaceable, that they might despise their reasonable wishes. Two years ago the hon. Member for Perth and himself came forward as the advocates of the claims of the Scottish Church, when they presented humble petitions, not for money, not for patronage, for they abhorred the one and did not value the other; but praying that while in secular matters they obeyed the laws of Parliament, in spiritual matters they might be exempted from the interference of the civil powers; but this 726 petition was spurned and disregarded. The Roman Catholics of Ireland, however, to whom he grudged nothing—who did not ask to be independent in spiritual matters, on them Government voluntarily bestowed this privilege. Here was an inconsistency which must be explained. The system adopted by Government in respect to Scotland was exactly the reverse of that adopted towards Ireland; and this system had resulted in disaster, for a separate Church Establishment was founded—a proceeding which Government might have avoided by granting to the prayers of the Presbyterian people of Scotland that which they had voluntarily given to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and which they did not even ask for. He was quite willing to admit that the world at large was indebted to the Roman Catholics for many bright examples of piety and learning. The names of Fenelon and Lingard were sufficient to prove the benefits mankind had sustained from the Roman Catholics; but while he was prepared to relax every Penal Statute passed against them since 1688, yet, as a Protestant, he must say his concession was limited to this—that he would not lend his hand to risk those great principles of the Reformation, on which, in his opinion, the welfare and security of the country depended. There was no mistaking the opinion of the people on this question. The countless petitions declared the deep interest they took in the question, and the thorough knowledge they had of its true import. There were only three petitions presented in favour of the Bill that day, and from whom did these petitions come? From a body of Socinians at Ulster, from another body of Socinians in Finsbury, and from a third body of Socinians at Newington. He objected to the principle of doing evil that good may come; and it was because he held this doctrine that he considered he should not discharge his duty to his country if he did not oppose the present measure—a measure fraught with evil, and which at best could only be productive of doubtful good to Ireland. In his heart he desired that the measure might never reach the Statute book; but if it were forced there against the opinion of the people of the country, that opinion would take the first opportunity of eradicating it. The measure was doubly fraught with evil, for it raised hopes in the Roman Catholics which Government 727 dared not satisfy. It was fraught with evil to the Protestant, because it created anxieties which would take much time and caution to allay. He might be in a minority in that House, but his majority was in the country at large; and he felt he should not discharge his duty, not to his constituents Only but to the country, and to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, if he did not enter his solemn protest against the present measure.
The Earl of Lincolnwas so well aware that the subject before the House had been completely exhausted during the four nights' debate which had taken place, and that every argument which had been brought forward, both for and against the measure, had been successively repeated, that he should have hesitated in rising to address the House, and should have contented himself with giving a silent vote, had it not been that he was anxious to remove from himself the danger of any misconstruction which might be attached to his omitting to state the reasons for that vote. He was anxious to explain that the vote he should give would not be a hesitating or a doubtful one; but that he was deeply interested in the success of the measure, not only in its success in this House, but in its success in Ireland. So strongly, indeed, was he convinced of the propriety, of the excellence, the necessity, and the justice of this measure, that he wished in the few observations which he was about to make, that he could impress upon any of his hearers ever so small a proportion of that conscientious conviction which influenced his own mind. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had appealed to the religious feelings of the community on the question; and he was ready to admit, that these feelings had been raised—that they were honest and conscientious; and equally ready to admit that no statesman ought rashly to do violence to such feelings. But it was equally the duty of a statesman to examine carefully whether these feelings were based upon justice and reason. The hon. Gentleman had stated it as his opinion, that if Government could have foreseen the reception which the measure had met with, they would have never brought it forward. He imagined that the hon. Gentleman, from the context of his reasoning, meant to imply that Government would have shunned that expression of religious feeling which, he was free to confess, had been excited. Now, he believed, and, in fact, he knew, that his right hon. Friend at the 728 head of the Government, not only when he brought forward the question, but when he gave notice last year of his intention to bring it forward, was well aware of the risks he was incurring, and of the manner in which it would probably be received. And this, of itself, would be a sufficient answer to the taunts launched last night by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh. Why, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Renfrewshire had answered these charges, when he said that there had been no call for the measure. If such had been the case, if on the one hand there was no demand for this Bill, and if on the other those feelings of religious opposition to which he had adverted were anticipated, what but an imperious sense of duty could have influenced the right hon. Baronet in bringing forward the measure? The question of contract had been repeatedly argued and re-argued during the last four nights' debate, and a great number of hon. Gentlemen, including the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, had denied the existence of any contract, or even of any implied contract. Now, he was ready to rest his vote on the merits of the question itself, because, quite apart from any questions of contract, he believed the proposition to be founded on justice; but at the same time he could not agree with the assertion that no contract existed. He could not agree with those who asserted that they might with equity withdraw the grant, any more than he could agree with those who asserted that a new religious principle had been raised by the measure. In discussing the question of contract, he was aware that he could bring forward no new argument; but, looking at the two Irish Acts of Parliament; looking at the Act of the Imperial Parliament sanctioning them and confirming them; looking at the Acts establishing the College of Maynooth, framing its regulations, appointing trustees, many of them Protestants, to whom to confide its management; looking to the circumstance that in 1809 and in 1813 they revised this Vote for the purpose of increasing it, and adding to the accommodation of the institution and the number of the students; looking to all these facts, he could not but feel that they were committed to the principle, and that a contract did exist upon the subject, not indeed a written contract of that legal force which would bind an individual, but such a contract as could 729 alone exist between a Government and the governed. Again, he denied that any new religious principle was involved in the measure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh had taken advantage of the assertions made on this point by hon. Gentlemen on his (Lord Lincoln's) side of the House; but he conceived that the religious principle which did exist in the matter was raised in 1795, and then when raised, disposed of. Indeed he could not see what a religious principle had to do with what was now purely a matter of arithmetical calculation, though the hon. Gentleman who last addressed the House mainly relied, in discussing this part of the subject, on the fact that we are about to triple the amount of the gram, and to give 30,000 for the improvement of the building. But, as he had stated, the religious principle was raised in 1795, in the measure suggested by Mr. Burke, introduced by Mr. Pitt, laid before the Prelates of England for their sanction and approval, acceded to by both Houses of Parliament—then exclusively Protestant—and finally made law by the sanction of George III., a Sovereign whom all Protestants revered. Finding a measure thus sanctioned, could they in 1845, in a reformed Parliament, with Roman Catholics now associated with us in the general legislation of the Empire, assume the right to discontinue it? Now with the permission of the House, he would refer to one or two authorities which he thought ought to have great weight with them on this subject. In 1811, Mr. Grattan stated "he was not aware of the strength of the right hon. Gentleman's (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) argument, that because we adopted the original grant, therefore we were not obliged ever to enlarge it. If once the principle was adopted, the limitation of the sum was only to be fixed by the circumstances of the times; to act otherwise was nominally to adopt and ultimately to defeat the principle." But when he contended that they would not be justified in striking off the grant, he did not mean to say that fifty years' prescription would make that right which was in itself wrong. There might be maxims in politics as in morals of right and wrong, which no revolution of ages, and no changes of States or Legislatures, could modify or alter; but then he was compelled to ask whether any such maxims were involved in the measure now before the House? As to the proposition that a 730 State might, without any infringement of religious principle, endow an institution intended to teach doctrines differing from those professed by the State—could it be contended that such a principle was morally wrong? He denied it. He believed, however, that there were some of his hon. Friends who held this doctrine; but, if they did, let them act up to their principles: they must go further than the rejection of this measure—they must utterly repeal the grant. But even this will not vindicate their consistency—they must go further still: they must cease to continue to the Protestant Dissenters of Ireland such assistance as the Regium Donum; they must withdraw from the Colonies that aid which the Roman Catholics there at present received. He knew that his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle said that he would be willing to make an exception in favour of the Colonies, and to stand by Treaties which bound us to payments for the support and advancement of Catholicism there. Where then was the principle? If the hon. Member considered the question as a matter of religious principle, he must make its application universal. No consideration of expediency should enter, when feelings so much higher stood on the threshold. The hon. Gentleman, and those who thought with him, should be prepared to act up to their principles, and treat these Treaties, providing for the support of Roman Catholicism in the Colonies, as so much waste paper, even though by such infraction of Treaties we should lose these Colonies, and all the advantages which attached to them. As for himself, he looked upon this measure as altogether unconnected with religious considerations. He looked upon it as a measure of high national policy. He saw in Ireland a priesthood placed in the midst of a population poor and ignorant—a priesthood which must possess power and influence in proportion to the poverty and ignorance by which it was surrounded. Could he then hesitate, seeing the immense moral influence they possessed — could he hesitate to adopt means for the better education of these educators of the people? Could he shrink from an endeavour to instruct those from whom alone the people of Ireland would consent to receive instruction? He did not despair of seeing the influence of the priesthood enlisted in aid of the common cause of the United Empire. He 731 did not despair of seeing that priesthood labouring in connexion with them, not indeed in the field of religion, but in the common field of the regeneration and improvement of the country. Such a consummation he believed to be within their reach. He would appeal even to his hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford — to his feelings of Christian, charity and benevolence—he would appeal to him whether even he would not make any sacrifice, short of one in which his feelings of religion were involved, to arrive at such a consummation? But to attain such an end, the proposition before the House must be the first step. Without such a measure nothing which they could do would be received in a grateful spirit. If this first step be wanting, all the best meant efforts of the Government for the improvement of Ireland will be valueless and unavailing. Several hon. Gentlemen, among others the hon. Members for Harwich and Warwickshire, had laid great stress upon what they conceived to be the failure of Maynooth up to the present time, and contended that therefore the grant should not be increased, but should be withdrawn altogether. But before he could come to such a conclusion he must inquire into the circumstances of this alleged failure. He was not about to give the House any further details on the point alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in bringing forward the measure, as to the present state of Maynooth; but he believed that the hon. Member for Perthshire was the only Gentleman who had stated that Maynooth was in that condition in which its friends could reasonably wish to see it. He believed, on the contrary, that it was in that state, as regarded internal arrangements, which was more calculated to lower and debase the mind than to elevate and enlighten it. Endowed by the State with a sum of money calculated apparently at the exact amount most likely to thwart its own avowed object, and at the same time discourage private liberality — could a place like this be likely to instil into the mind of the young candidate for holy orders any gratitude or reverence to those to whom he owed the education which he was receiving? Before, then, they pronounced Maynooth to be a failure, increase the physical comforts of its inmates. It was now admitted to be an axiom as regarded education, that it required physical comforts as a first step to 732 its effective instilment, and that without that first step it could be only half successful. Let there also be an improved system of scientific and literary education. With the theological course of study he hoped that they would not interfere; but the general education, though he by no means concurred in the observations of the hon. Member for Newcastle on this point, was susceptible of much improvement. With this improvement, and with an increase of physical comforts, if the institution should yet be found a failure, they would then, and not till then, have a right to complain of it. As matters at present stood, any argument deduced from the allegation that the priests hitherto educated in Maynooth had been found in any way wanting in their proper duties to their flocks, and had diverged into the paths of agitation and political excitement against the laws, only confirmed him in the impression that it was wise to attempt to improve their education, and by some such measure as that now before them to attempt to gain to the Legislature their better feelings. Another objection which had been raised to the measure, was that which related to its being introduced unconditionally. It was said, "Increase the endowment if you will, but increase it under certain conditions. Impose such conditions as should make Maynooth a seminary for general as well as theological learning. Do not educate priests only within these walls. In short, secularize as much as possible its character." But this system had already been tried. It was upon this foundation that the College had at first been placed. The plan was persevered in for twenty-two years, and then abandoned, as having been found unsuitable and practically inconvenient. In the year 1826 the Commissioners of Education inquired into the condition of the College at Maynooth, and it was in these terms that they spoke of it:—
Although the principal object of the trustees appears to have been the education of persons for the Roman Catholic priesthood, they appropriated a portion of the building as a lay college, and received within it persons who were not destined for holy orders. It became, however, apparent that the different system of education which is deemed necessary for those who are to undertake the duties and obligations of the priesthood, and the additional restraints to which they are subject, rendered the lay college an inconvenient appendage. It was discontinued in the year 1817, and the buildings and land which had 733 been appropriated to it were applied to the use of the clerical students.The statement which he had just read fully confirmed the prudent and sagacious anticipations of Mr. Burke. The words of Mr. Burke had been quoted already by an hon. Gentleman on the other side; but with the permission of the House he would read a passage which bore upon this part of the question:—When we are to provide for the education of any body of men we ought seriously to consider the particular functions they are to perform in life. A Roman Catholic clergyman is the minister of a very ritual religion, and by his profession subject to many restraints. His life is a life full of strict observances, and his duties are of a laborious nature towards himself, and of the highest possible trust towards others. The duty of confession alone is sufficient to set in the strongest light the necessity of his having an appropriate mode of education. If a Roman Catholic clergyman, intended for celibacy, and the function of confession, is not strictly bred in a seminary where these things are respected, inculcated, and enforced as sacred, and not made the subject of derision and obloquy, he will be ill fitted for the former, and the latter will be indeed in his hands a terrible instrument.It was admitted that the experiment had been fairly tried, and that it had entirely failed. Into this part of the subject he would not enter further. He would only express his belief that it would be most improper in the Government to impose such terms as those thus proposed; and if they did attempt to secularize education in Maynooth, they would run greater risk of making the laity educated there bigoted, than they would have a chance of rendering the priesthood liberal. But the hon. Member for Armagh complained of the time at which the Motion had been brought forward, and his hon. Friend the Member for Harwich had adopted the same tone. He remembered also, that on a previous night the hon. Member for Dublin had declared that he thought the time at which the measure had been brought forward the most unfortunate which could have been selected. He feared the objection of time was too often raised to measures of this kind when all other arguments failed, or when it was necessary to find a makeweight for the scale when the balance of reasons was against the speaker. At the same time he was ready to admit, that on a measure of this kind, the time of granting the concession, and the manner of doing it, were two essential points on which the 734 success of the experiment depended. As to the manner in which it had been brought forward, he should say nothing. The right hon. and learned Member for Dungarvon—in a speech of even more than his usual eloquence—did ample justice to that point. As regarded the time, he thought this was the time for granting a boon of this nature. Let him remind the House, that they had been frequently told by Mr. O'Connell that every concession to the Roman Catholics was extorted by force; we have been told that we yielded to agitation within our shores, Dr. to the apprehension of dangers and wars from without. Where were the dangers which we had now to fear? He believed we had nothing to fear; and this was a fitting occasion for displaying a requisite degree of moral courage in adapting our measures to the circumstances of the time and of the country. This was not only the most propitious, but, as he had said, the precise time for such a measure as the present. Agitation had been suppressed, the supremacy of the law had been vindicated, the clamour for Repeal (which had continued so long that the people of this country at least were apprehensive that there was some real danger of the success of that measure), was drowned in the murmur of growing industry and commercial prosperity. As to external dangers there were none; not even those "little wars" which had been left as a legacy to the present Government by their predecessors in office. Scarcely even a rumour of wars was heard. He maintained, then, that with peace at home and abroad, this was the particular moment when a boon might be conferred with grace. "And I pray to God," said the noble Lord, "it may be accepted by the people of Ireland in the spirit in which it is given." But let me remind the House that if this measure is now rejected you will not be in the same position as if it never was proposed. We have held up this cup to the lips of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. I sincerely trust the House will not dash it from them. We have raised their hopes. I trust you will not force them back on their own resources. If the House should so decide, it will incur a heavy and serious responsibility. I feel that I have detained the House too long, but I must repeat that this measure has my hearty concurrence, not only in its details, but in its principle. I am ready, however, to admit that whilst I give as unhesitating a support to this measure as I 735 have ever done to any measure during the twelve years I have had the honour of sitting in this House, and while I approve warmly of its equity and propriety, as well as anticipate the most beneficial results from it when it shall have come into operation, I must, I say, at the same time acknowledge that this vote is to me a painful one. I shall give this vote in opposition to the remonstrances and views and opinions of my constituents—men with whom during my career in Parliament I have had no political differences, and whose religious feelings on this question I cannot look on otherwise than with the deepest reverence and respect. There are other causes which render the vote a very painful one. I feel that those causes—to which it is neither necessary nor would it he becoming in me more particularly to allude—are entitled to weight, and render my vote a most painful one; but I also feel that I should be wanting in my duty to the country if I allowed considerations of this kind to induce me to hesitate or falter in the course which I think right. I support this measure because I am firmly convinced that it will—I do not say in its immediate results—tend to the prosperity of Ireland, and that the policy which dictates it will tend to produce political and religious peace in that country, and to secure the establishments of both countries, whether civil or ecclesiastical. As regards the feelings of constituents on this question, I would address myself with all deference and humility to some hon. Friends around me, who I know are suffering from pressure from without. I can myself speak from experience on that point; but I feel confident that if my hon. Friends adopt the course which according to their conscientious convictions they think right, we shall be enabled, at some future day, to appeal from the intoxication of the present state of apprehension of our constituents, to the sobriety of their future reflections; and sure I am, that in their calm and temperate moments, they will accord us their free and unqualified meed of approbation.
§ Lord Worsleysaid: If I consulted my own feelings, I should not trouble the House with any observations on this question; but having presented 136 petitions from my own constituents against this Bill, I feel I may be excused if I ask the House to indulge me for a few moments whilst I state the grounds of the vote I mean to give. I presented peti- 736 tions, not only from the Wesleyans, but from all the Dissenting bodies in the division of the county which I represent; and although I have had the honour of sitting for that division for thirteen or fourteen years, I may safely say that on no previous occasion has there been so universal a sentiment of opposition to a Government measure. I am bound to say this; and I feel I should ill discharge my duty as a Member of this House, if I did not at once avow that my opinion on this question does not coincide with the views of my constituents. I have the satisfaction, however, of reflecting, that though I gave no pledges, my general opinions on this question were known to my constituents. During the period I have been in Parliament, I have invariably voted for the grant of 9,000l. to Maynooth, and I have been three or four times re-elected after having done so. I also, in 1835, voted for the Motion of my noble Friend the Member for the city of London, when he proposed a Committee of the whole House on the ecclesiastical affairs of Ireland. In his speech prefacing that Motion, my hon. Friend stated that if the House went into Committee, he should propose that the surplus funds of ecclesiastical revenues in Ireland should be appropriated for the religious education of all classes of Christians. I voted for that Motion, and was afterwards twice re-elected. I mention these facts merely to show that I am not now acting contrary to those views which must bare been known to those who sent me to this House; and though it shall ever be my desire to pay a due respect to the opinions of my constituents, I have also to consider what the interests of the country generally require. It is true I hear on both sides as a matter of taunt against the Government, that this measure is brought forward by men who never before proposed any plan of liberal policy towards Ireland. I will admit the justness of this observation; but, am I to reject a measure which I consider a good one, because Ministers have not heretofore acted up to their present professions? Looking at its effects in a religious and political point of view, I believe that this measure is calculated to do good to Ireland. I do not think I am doing anything wrong in a religious point of view, if I afford better means of education to those who are to instruct the 737 people of Ireland. To give the clergy of Ireland the benefit of such an improved system of education, I look on as a step merely in accordance with the divine precept of Christian charity. I shall, therefore, without hesitation, give my vote for the second reading of this Bill. At the same time, I wish to be understood as pledged only to the principle of the Bill. I am not giving any opinion as to the source from which the money to be applied under this Bill should come. On the same ground that I voted in 1835 that the surplus Ecclesiastical Revenues should be applied to education, I should oppose the charge of 26,000l. on the Consolidated Fund, and I should prefer the Motion of which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield has given notice. But that does not preclude me from voting for the principle of the Bill on this occasion. If I had given a silent vote I feel that my approval of the measure might be construed as indicating the views of my constituents; I should not, therefore, be acting an honest part if I did not state the difference of opinion which existed between us, and I should be acting a less honest part if I absented myself on such a question, or voted contrary to my own conviction of what is right.
§ Mr. Milnessaid, he should hardly have taken a part in this eager and anxious debate, had it not been for the circumstance that last year he had placed on the Books of the House a Resolution, praying the House to affirm that the endowment of the Roman Catholic priests of Ireland would be a wise and judicious measure. He could not deny that at that time his Motion met with the same reception from the House that the Bill of his right hon. Friend had met with from the country. And when he had come to answer his constituents for bringing forward that Motion, he did feel almost to a certainty, that an occasion would soon arrive when he should be called on in a more distinct and prominent manner to express himself On the subject. He did not, however, think that the Bill before the House contained any formal or distinct recognition on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers to carry out any distinct scheme for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy. When he proposed that Resolution to the House he did not ask the House to pledge itself to any particular scheme, but merely to the propriety of conciliating the Roman Ca- 738 tholic clergy of Ireland. And he must say that this was the value, the real gist of the Bill before the House, that it was a first great step towards conciliation. Other modes of conciliating Ireland had failed in their intent, because they did not approach the Irish people through the medium of their instructors—those men who had stood by the Irish people during the whole of their dark and desolate history—because an attempt had not been made to conciliate the Irish people in the only way they could accept it, by improving their priesthood, and thus making that priesthood the great links of connexion between the English and Irish people. But to come to the mere innocency of the Bill; for he did not think any hon. Gentleman—not even the hon. Member for Oxford himself—would object to the measure solely and simply because it proposed to give a little more comfort to the students of Maynooth, to put a little more furniture into their gloomy apartments, to give a more decent front to their dilapidated building, and afford to the students a readier introduction into the kingdom of literature, science, and art. If that question stood merely by itself, he (Mr. Milnes) did not suppose that the Bill would be opposed by any body; but it was asserted that this additional grant to Maynooth would be an encouragement to Catholicism in Ireland. Now, if comfort or even wealth were to encourage and promote a particular religion, surely the Protestant Establishment would hardly have remained so long stationary during the whole progress of its career. Surely, if those means, so largely and generously applied, could produce such immediate and extensive spiritual effects, the Roman Catholic religion would hardly, at this moment, be the religion of nearly seven millions of people. He need not remind the spiritually-minded men who opposed him on this subject that there was no necessary connexion between those things—that the concession of a little comfort to the priesthood of Ireland did not necessarily encourage and increase the spiritual efficacy of Popery. If the hon. Member for Kent saw a Roman Catholic sick on the wayside, the fear of encouraging Popery would not deter him (Mr. Plumptre) from acting the part of the good Samaritan. And he (Mr. Milnes) did not think this Bill involved any more the encouragement of Popery, nor did he 739 think it entered into the consideration of the Government to encourage or discourage Popery by this Bill. He had never been more shocked in his life, than when he had heard the hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford say, that he had rather the Irish priests shouid be as bad and as ignorant as they could be, than that they should produce such men as Bossuet, or Dr. Wiseman. He should be ashamed of his Protestantism if he held that opinion. He did not hold the opinion, that if you gave the Roman Catholics more knowledge yon rendered their approach to Protestantism more difficult. There was more in the spirit of the contract of Mr. Pitt than at first appeared. The real contract was, that the priests should be educated properly. If the hon. Member for Shrewsbury would allow to Mr. Pitt the privilege which he would not allow to Mr. Perceval, of having a ghost, he (Mr. Milnes) was sure Mr. Pitt would rejoice to see the real fulfilment of his contract. If the shade of Pitt were now hovering over the House, he would hail with delight the present measure, both for what it is and for what it promises. For although it conferred but a small favour, that favour derived an enormous value from the frank and generous manner in which it was offered, and also for the promise it gave that the Government were determined to reach the hearts of the Irish people in the only way that was possible. In this respect Her Majesty's Ministers had followed the example of the admirable Government of hon. Gentlemen opposite. He thought it extremely unjust to speak of that Government in the way it had been spoken of by his own side of the House when in opposition. He did believe that they had struck the right chord in respect to Ireland, and had begun to govern that country in the right way. They had governed Ireland rightly, not by Whig Registration Bills, or political fancies, but by obtaining the love of the people. They had governed Ireland by the true and simple process of treating the Irish priesthood as they ought to be treated. He believed that that was the whole secret of Whig popularity, and if the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) followed up that course, he would be able to accomplish some good, without doing a tittle of injury to the Established Church of Ireland; while all the acts, and all the intentions of the hon. Gentlemen opposite necessarily implicated its destruct- 740 tion and overthrow. He earnestly wished to state what he believed to be the main distinctions in matters of this kind. It was important to mark those distinctions; and if they were not asserted, then Her Majesty's Government was open to those reproaches which had been so eloquently directed against it by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh; but which, if those distinctions were preserved, were most unfair and unjust. We have been asked how far we mean to go in this course. The question had been put to him as it had been put to every other Member. ["No, no."] The question had been put to every Member that supported Her Majesty's Government. ["No, no."] The question had been put to him. It might be extremely ludicrous to the House, but it was extremely serious to him. He believed it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government, arguing solely from what he had seen of their public proceedings—and he knew it was his own intention—to proceed as far in the conciliation of Roman Catholics in Ireland as was compatible with the existence of the Protestant Church in Ireland. Not a word had fallen from the supporters of this Bill during the debate, to show that they had any intention to promote any measure that would endanger the Church Establishment in Ireland. It was not, however, to be supposed that the same line could be laid down for all the individuals composing a party. He knew well that he was associated with some hon. Gentlemen holding extreme opinions; and some hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House sympathized with them, because the noble Lord the Member for London had treated them in the same way in which the right hon. Baronet was treating his supporters. But was it to be argued that, in the present political state of that country, the lines of conduct laid down by Lord Eldon were to be scrupulously adhered to? The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had been reproached with having deserted his principles and party; but there had been crises both in party and in political history which showed that the right hon. Gentleman was not single in the course which he had taken; indeed, some such opinions as those which had escaped with reference to his present proceeding had frequently before been expressed in that House; and he must state his firm conviction that there was nothing 741 more dangerous to the character of that House than for its Members to permit their political and their party feelings to assume a religious aspect, and for them to be governed by such considerations in giving their votes upon any measure. In that case, all improvement would be impossible, and all the lessons of experience would be lost; victory would yield nothing but pride; defeat would result in obstinacy, and we should end at last in holding opinions which reason would reject, and principles which our better reason abhorred. He should support the present measure; and when he was on the other side of the House, upwards of twenty Members expressed to him publicly their desire that such a measure should be brought forward. ["Name, name."] The hon. Member for Northamptonshire had challenged him to name those that expressed such a desire; but he would not name them. Under any circumstances, he should have given the same cordial support to the measure which he was prepared to do, from whatever Minister it had proceeded; but, independently of all other considerations, he was prepared to maintain that the question was one of the very highest expediency. [Loud laughter, and cries of "Hear."] He could not understand how it was that within those walls the word "expediency" always bore an opprobrious meaning. For his part, he always looked upon expediency to be the best principle of action. He never could disconnect it from the adage which declared honesty to be the best policy; and if that principle were carried out, then expediency would often be found at the bottom. Let him only ask hon. Members who were in favour of the Bill to examine their own minds, and, having done so, to declare whether they were not prepared to vote for it upon the ground of expediency. He asserted that the measure was not only expedient, but that it was absolutely demanded. He did not mean by this to imply that the right hon. Baronet might not have got through another year or two without bringing forward some such measure as that before the House; but what he meant was, that the battle must be fought sooner or later, and he therefore thought that the present was a most favourable moment, and that the time was most opportune for deciding the question whether the people of England were prepared to allow Ireland to be 742 governed in a spirit of fairness and equality. He rejoiced most heartily that such a measure should have been brought forward by the right hon. Baronet; and he was the more disposed to welcome such a measure, because he was certain the country would, at no distant period, see that Her Majesty's Government had only brought it forward from motives of strong necessity. When the right hon. Baronet and his noble and venerable Colleague in the Ministry (the Duke of Wellington) had been accused of having resisted such a measure as the present until all Ireland was on the brink of a civil war, and when such men concurred in the measure conjointly with the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary, and the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies, he could not but consider that public men of the character and standing of those to whom he referred were actuated by the highest principles of the public welfare; and, he believed, that the country would soon be able to perceive that Ministers had not approached the question on wanton or trifling grounds, but had been urged to deal with it by the strong and pressing necessity of the case. He knew what the country said and felt at present on the subject of the measure. He knew also that it was difficult to oppose reason to the passions; but he must deliberately state it to be his opinion that the country was not at the present time susceptible of the arguments which had been adduced in favour of the Bill. The House was, however, intrusted with a solemn and a responsible duty, and it was a part of that duly for them to carry out a measure like the present, in the principle and justice, as well as necessity of which, so vast a majority of them concurred, even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of their constituents. Those were solemn moments of deliberation, and he was not unwilling to take his share of the responsibility which the success of the measure would throw upon the House. If the right hon. Baronet should be defeated on the present question — and such a contingency was possible—all he would do was to ask the country to compare the successors of the present Ministry with those whom they would displace. He did not, however, anticipate that such an occurrence would take place. He believed rather that the opposition to the measure would be found to comprise chiefly the 743 well-meaning theorists of the closet. He did not believe so good so wise a measure as the present would be lost. He believed that the marvellous common sense of the people of England, which had carried them through so many arduous struggles, would again guide them in coming to a right decision upon the present Bill, and that it would not fail them on the present emergency. He believed that the people would compare those who sat on his side of the House with their opponents on the other Benches, and that they would also compare the measures of the right hon. Baronet's Ministry with those brought forward by the late Government, and having done so, that they would decide in favour of the Bill. He believed the people would ask themselves whether Ireland was to be governed in conformity to the principles on which the measure was based, or by means of violence and coercion. For himself, he saw no alternative between the adoption of the Bill and the resumption of coercive measures. There was no safety in dallying with the discontent of 6,000,000; and the country must either be prepared to re-enact the penal laws of Ireland, or else to follow out the course indicated by the present Bill. One or the other of these two courses must be pursued, and that without further delay. He could conceive no bigot so injurious to the cause which he supported as an amiable bigot, like the hon. Member for Oxford. When it was recollected that Lord Bacon had declared Popery to be at an end in Ireland, and when Swift was found declaring that in a few years there would be no more Roman Catholics in that country, the fact could only be referred to the mysterious decrees of Providence, that the priesthood there were, at the present moment, more powerful than ever. The cruelly of the policy which had been pursued towards Ireland was such as to humiliate every Englishman who looked back on the history of that country; and no penance could be too great to expiate the past, nor was any danger too great to be risked, if by any means the recollection of past injuries could be effaced, and the persecution of the past be made the means of present reconciliation. For his own part, so strong was his conviction that the present measure was cased on a right principle, that he was ready to sacrifice his seat in that House if such would be the result of 744 his voting in support of the right hon. Baronet.
§ Mr. Sergeant Murphysaid, it must be a subject of congratulation with every person, on whatever side, to know that, however disastrous to the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, the contingency of removal from office might be, his hon. Friend opposite was ready, with that spontaneous profusion in which images flowed upon him, to vindicate his failure. It might be for antagonist leaders of political parties in that House to indulge in crimination and recrimination, and to contrast the differences of their present conduct and policy with that of former days. But he, as a Roman Catholic Member from Ireland, was not in a situation to adopt that course, which he would leave to others who had fought the battles of contested policy. He stood there on neutral ground, to consider what was the spirit of the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards Ireland, and to tell what he conscientiously believed would be the advantages to the peace of both countries, if it were accepted in a cordial spirit. It was in that spirit he came before the House; but, if he should transcend, in some measure, the calm spirit in which he would fain review the matter—if he too keenly resented certain taunts, which must gall his feelings where those whom he revered as the ministers of his religion had been insulted, he hoped it might be ascribed to the generous feelings of an Irishman. Reviewing certain speeches made on either side of the House, he would first address himself to that of the hon. Member for New castle-under-Lyne (Mr. Colquhoun), who, in an address remarkable for its ability, arrived at certain conclusions, which appeared to him startling and anomalous. These were, first, that the degree of ignorance existing in the College of Maynooth was lamentable and ridiculous, from which the hon. Member inferred that we ought to withhold any grant of money which would lay the axe at the root of the evil; and next, that there was something in the ascetic character of that institution wholly repugnant to the character which the people of this country would approve of in an Institution for the education of the Catholic clergy. If the hon. Member had known the sentiments of the people of Ireland as to educational institutions, he would have known that one of the 745 boons, the most zealously sought for, was, that the advantages of Trinity College should be thrown open to all classes of, Her Majesty's subjects. Yet, when they asked that this should be done, and expressed their willingness to accept it in lieu of any separate educational institution, it was refused to them. He appealed to the hon. Recorder for Dublin whether, when they arrived at a certain point in that academical arena, they did not find the stigma of exclusion cast upon them? They asked the right hon. Baronet to propose no measure for education but the opening of their own University. He came now to consider the principle of the measure. The proposition of the Government was to give a certain amount for the education of the Roman Catholic clergy. He was told by hon. Members, some of whom opposed the grant, that there was no compact in the case. He never considered there was any magic in the word compact; he had merely looked at this as a matter recurring from year to year; but he would ask any person whether, even it there were no compact in the first instance, there was not something in the tone and temper of society in this country which gave to the grant a permanence as strong and fixed as if there had been a written treaty? Was it not then, a wise and good measure, first, instead of the heart-burnings which flowed from the annual discussion of the measure, to make the grant permanent? and, next, to put it on a fooling which should be beneficial? The hon. Member would say that he did not object to the original grant of 9,000l., but that the proposed increase involved moral turpitude as well as injury to the interests of Protestantism. It was to him new to find that there was such a thing as a sliding scale in morality, and he could not understand why, if it was wrong to give 26,000l., it was not equally wrong to give 9,000l. He found that this institution had been recognised for the purposes to which it was set apart, in 1791, and the foundation-stone was laid by the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Camden. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government told them that this establishment was now in the most ruinous condition. The right hon. Member for Perth quoted Mr. Grant, who told them that it was a place well built and in good repair, of which the inmates were in the utmost 746 comfort and prosperity. The right hon. Member for Dungarvon seemed at the moment to have a clue to his notions on the subject, for he remarked that the author was a Scotchman. He could easily imagine that the author, not being acquainted with the luxury of trousers, might have supposed those whom he saw wearing them to be exceedingly well off. He happened to have before him a book by this author, devoted to the description of the Members of that House some years back. Perhaps they would allow him, from its graphic pages, to present certain delineations of them in the article of dress, which would probably convince the House what an eminent judge this respectable Scotch traveller was of such matters. On the principle of detur digniori, to the spirit of which he should always adhere, he would commence with the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel). He was quite sure every one who heard the description would say at once, "There is the man before me:"
His usual dress is a green surtout, a light waistcoat, and a dark pair of trousers. He generally displays a watch-chain on his breast, with a hunch of gold seals, unusually large in dimensions.Let the House listen to what followed; he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would feel it was a calumny on him.He can scarcely be called a dandy, yet he sacrifices a good deal to the graces, and for my part I hardly know any public man who dresses in better taste.This was Mr. Grant's description of the right hon. Baronet; and, turning over the page, he came to another description, which appeared to be underlined; it was that of the gallant Officer the Member for Lincoln; and, if the gallant Officer would receive it in the same good humour with which he offered it, he would make no bones about reading it to the House. [Colonel Sibthorp: Hear.]His countenance is altogether unique; it stands out in broad relief from the countenances of all the other Members. Two or three other senators rejoice in tufts, and a few more in whiskers of decent proportion; but, compared with the moustaches and whiskers of the gallant Colonel, one feels indignant that they should be dignified by the name. You hardly know whether he has a mouth or not, it is so completely buried amidst the surrounding crop of hair, until he begins to speak. He 747 is extremely proud of his whiskers and moustaches.Now they came to the plums in the pudding,—He will do and suffer a great deal for his party and principles, but rather than submit to be shaved, he would see Tories, Constitution, and all scattered to the winds.He came now to the hon. Member for Lambeth, Mr. Hawes,—He speaks very often, but generally on the details of some very unimportant Bill: I have known no one great principle or measure with which he is identified. He is a little man, round in the face, and of dark hair.After this he should not detain the House except by the description which the writer gave of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Perth, Mr. Fox Maule,—He is a man of exceedingly graceful proportions, and very retiring manners."*He was quite sure every one who had heard these specimens of the author's descriptive powers, would be prepared to admit that his authority, as appealed to by his right hon. Friend the Member for Perth, in all matters of dress, comfort, and convenience, was correct. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire asked the Roman Catholic Members how it was that, supporting the voluntary principle, they were willing to accept this grant. He was willing to accept the measure, because he found a meritorious class of men in a state of great misery and destitution; and he was willing to receive it for another and a political reason. The paltry consideration of a sum of 30,000l. was not regarded. It was regarded as applied to the education of a class of men with whom the people were connected by the nearest and holiest ties. If the people were prepared to receive the measure in this spirit—if they felt that no matter what party was the governing party—the Bill was to be taken as an indication on the part of England that the time had arrived when she was willing to treat Ireland in a spirit of equality, irrespective of sectarian and party feeling; and as an earnest of still greater measures of justice, he did entreat hon. Gentlemen who were about to oppose* It seems right for the benefit of posterity to record the fact, that these quotations excited much merriment in the House from their gross inaccuracy or exaggeration.748 this Bill to pause ere they dashed the cup from the lips of the people of Ireland. Was the House prepared for that feeling which the rejection of the Bill would excite in Ireland? Hon. Members had quoted certain words reported to have been used by Mr. O'Connell, at Conciliation Hall. "Conciliation! I thank you. Agitation! I am obliged to you. Repeal! Maynooth ought to pray for you." Now, if it should appear that a Minister in this country, gifted with the power of the right hon. Baronet opposite, convinced at length that the time had arrived for conciliating Ireland, proposed this paltry grant to carry out the intention of an exclusively Protestant Irish Parliament, and his proposition were rejected by an opposition which, whether upon evangelical or voluntary principles, must be construed into a No-Popery cry, Mr. O'Connell might then get up, and instead of saying "Repeal! Maynooth ought to pray for you," he might say, "British House of Commons! you who reject this Bill, Repeal ought to pray for you!" for he (Mr. Sergeant Murphy) believed that no circumcumstance would give so great an impetus to the Repeal movement as the rejection of this measure. Objections had been raised against taking this grant out of the Consolidated Fund. He did not wish to burden the taxes; he would rather see a fund from the Established Church devoted to all creeds alike, having due regard to vested interests; but was it nothing to consider how much might be saved to the taxes by a judicious distribution of these small sums? Murmurs had been heard on the other side of the Atlantic, and it would be well to meet them with the firmness and resolution of a really united kingdom. He now came to a speech delivered by a Protestant clergyman at a crowded meeting held last evening at Covent-garden Theatre, some passages of which he would read to the House, and he would beg to ask the House if they were prepared in the rejection of this measure to convey to the people of Ireland their acquiescence in such sentiments:—He had been asked to give an historical view of the effects of Popery in this country, and he would attempt to do so. It was twenty years since that view first occurred to him, and during that period he had seen from day to day additional reasons for relying upon the fidelity of it. England, beyond all other nations of the world, had been made the depo- 749 sitory of religion and truth; but from the time she became a kingdom, until the Reformation, she might be said to have been in slavery. He spoke of facts. With the Reformation came a total change. Elizabeth, that most magnanimous Queen, declared for Protestanism. In the next reign a Popish conspiracy arose, but it was overthrown, and the King and Commons of the country were saved from the fearful explosion of a gunpowder plot. Then came the reign of Charles, a splendid Sovereign, and just the one for raising a nation; but he made a Popish alliance—he brought up his two sons in Popery—and, as if the lightning of Heaven had fallen upon the diadem of England, and blasted its splendour, Charles was the first of the Kings of this country who perished upon the scaffold.This from a clergyman!—Next came Cromwell, a guilty man, no doubt, because he had stained his hands unnecessarily in blood; but still a great man, who had redeemed by his glories as a king his errors as a subject. Then followed the second Charles, a weak and superstitious man, but not so deeply criminal as to draw down the vengeance of Heaven on his head. He was not a declared Papist,He would pass on to another sentence—Within twelve months of the passing of that measure (Catholic Emancipation) of which he was prohibited from giving an opinion, a greater number of extraordinary changes occurred in this country than ever were known before. The King—a popular King too—soon after he had put his signature to it, was carried from this world.(Cries of "Name, name.") He had no objection to name the clergyman in question—it was the Rev. Dr. Croly. What was the inference the rev. gentleman wished his audience to draw from these allusions? Was he not advising the Sovereign of these realms not to lean to Popery, and warning her to take example from her predecessors, and saying—"If, in the present state of society, you are not brought to the block, at least have the example of him who signed the Emancipation Act before your eyes." That was the conclusion, and no other, that could be drawn from such a speech. If after such statements as these the Bill were to be rejected, was it likely to contribute to the good feeling and peace of Ireland? He supported the measure because he held it would be beneficial to both countries, and that its rejection would be fatal to the peace of Ireland.
§ Sir John Hanmersaid: Although this Bill has had the advantage of the great 750 majority of speakers, none have shown me sufficient reason for supporting the grant which is proposed. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down (Sergeant Murphy) who spoke of the impediments which existed to Roman Catholic education in Ireland, seems to have forgotten, or not to have been aware, that even before the passing of the Charitable Bequests Act of last year, it was the opinion of Mr. Blake that no impediment did in fact exist, either by the law of "mortmain" or of "superstitious uses," neither of which applied to Ireland, to the endowment by Roman Catholics of any religious or scholastic institution for the purposes of their own church. Mr. Blake said distinctly before the Mortmain Committee of last year, that in his experience, which was well known to be great, he had known such bequests carried into effect by the Irish Courts of Equity—at least since the name of equity had ceased to be profaned by the penal code. The Charitable Bequests Act, however, has since cleared up every doubt, if doubt or hindrance existed; and I maintain there can be no longer just ground for the complaint of want of means of education made by the hon. and learned Gentleman. I have listened with great attention to all the speeches in favour of this Bill, and I declare that up to the present time it seems to me left in doubt what character we are to attribute to it; whether it is a Bill the operation of which will be confined to the walls of Maynooth, or whether it is the indication of a distinct course of policy hereafter to be pursued. Yet to arrive at a distinct understanding of what is meant is of great importance to Parliament; of great importance, as it is of great interest to the people. If you had got triennial Parliaments, which existed for a considerable period of your history; if by any means Parliament was brought now to a dissolution; if the people had got now to select new Representatives, it cannot be doubted—whether you like it or not—that in their choice of Representatives, in that constitutional expression of their political opinions, they would be greatly influenced by their opinion of this Bill. Look to Kent at this moment if you doubt what I say. Well, then, is it not of the first importance, in every point of view, to define what the Bill means. This is not a question merely to be argued upon general considerations. I will not yield to my 751 noble Friend (Lord Worsley), or to any man in Parliament, or out of it, in my determination to maintain religious liberty by the side of civil. I yield to no man, I hope, in my general desire, aye, in an ardent desire, to do good to Ireland. But I want to arrive at an appreciation of the instrument (said to be for good) which you wish me, as a Member of the Legislature, to put into the hands of the Government. What is it, I repeat, for I want to know, that you intend by this Bill? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh tells you it means nothing but the difference between 9,000l. and 26,000l.—nothing but the difference between dilapidation and comfort—nothing, save that choice of decency and the reverse, in an institution which is already associated with the State. Aye, but the right hon. Gentleman went farther than this, for be desired you to remember who now lived in the balls built by William of Wakeham: who had possession of the foundations of Margaret of Anjou; he referred to great ecclesiastical possesions in Ireland, once belonging to the faith of the majority, now to that of the minority of the Irish people; and he called upon you to be just, as well as generous, in remembrance of these things. Sir, where justice and generosity come together, the stronger and sterner virtue will overbear the beautiful grace. I may be generous and just, but in the name of justice I must do far more than in the name of generosity. What, then, in the name of justice, is it that you ask me to do by this Bill? If beyond the liberty of voluntary endowment—if beyond the protection open to all citizens of just and equal civil laws, I am to do justice to my fellow-citizens of the Roman communion in Ireland, by bringing about between them and the State ecclesiastical connexions do you mean to say that object can be satisfied thus and here? No, but it must be by a further operation of the principle that is involved. The Secretary at War (Mr. Herbert) says none is involved—he means of course no new one; he thinks you have got machinery already, which only requires a little modification and rubbing up. He would have you suppose this Bill will conclude and include all you have to do if only you will adopt it; and he feels warranted, in contemplation of this moderate expenditure of the Government, to anticipate that Ireland may, hereafter, instead 752 of the usual order of Maynooth priests, possess her Pascals and her Fenelons, and the advantages of minds like theirs; whom, indeed, as models, I am not surprised that the discrimination of the right hon. Gentleman preferred to Bellarmine and to Bossuet, alluded to by other Members. For, only think what a condition you would find yourselves in—you who speak philosophically, and a little proudly, perhaps, in your philosophy of religious toleration — who say that error must be mixed with truth, and for the sake of truth are not unwilling that the State should propagate the errors of the Church of Rome. How would you find yourselves off. I will suggest to yon, if, as one result of this moderate and yet extraordinary expenditure, you were to find the great cardinal (Bellarmine) rising up again, and the bishop who grasped the thunderbolts of Meaux, rallying the millions of their faith around them, turning the tables upon you, speaking in the name of what they would consider the only true church, the Alpha and the Omega of the Christian world: you might be in want in your turn of a little toleration. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Minister introduces and he supports this Bill, in a way which still leaves it doubtful whether the limited interpretation put upon it by his Colleague, or that which the Member for Newark (Mr. Gladstone) prefers, is the right one. But, I say, where things of great importance are involved, great principles must be the moving power; I say, that I must consider the effect of principles—I must treat this Bill as a detail. The right hon. Gentleman recommends the Bill in he name of Mr. Pitt, as well as that of Mr. Perceval; the footprints of Mr. Pitt are stronger and deeper, they have a more direct bearing than those of Mr. Perceval. Linger with Mr. Perceval about details; if you take Mr. Pitt as your leader you must go onward, and take care where and how you go. Ask yourselves—you who would deal with this Bill as statesmen—whether the circumstances of these times are such as will warrant you in taking Mr. Pitt as your immediate leader—for I put Mr. Perceval aside. The principle on which this Bill rests—that for which I distinctly oppose it—is the principle of a connexion between the State in Ireland, and the Roman Catholic Church. Now such connexion was in the contemplation of Mr. Pitt, as is well known. Pay to the memory of a great statesman so much re- 753 spect as not to blame his unaccomplished intentions; but consider well, if he in his time could be justified, can there be anything to justify you in such a course now? The object of Mr. Pitt was to gain influence in Ireland, then recently in rebellion: will you gain influence by those ecclesiastical relations which are not so directly proposed here, as the necessary consequence—the consequence which Mr. Pitt foresaw and intended—of the State taking charge of the education of the priests of Maynooth? In the days of Mr. Put, with the French Revolution like a burning fiery furnace melting and devouring every law in Europe, or whatsoever it inscribed, with all your legislation as to the admission of your Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen to the rights of citizens yet to come, it might have been possible for a great statesman, wielding the power of this country, when all these things came to be remodelled, to have exacted some stipulations from the heads of the Roman Catholic Church, which might have given you, in return for your interference in their ecclesiastical relations, ecclesiastical control. Is it in your power, by interfering with the priests only, to attain this, supposing it to be an object which you should desire? Sir, if ever there was an institution upon earth, the continual, the ruling maxim of which, from the very beginning, was that political maxim adopted by the Abbé Sieyès, that "confidence should come from below, power from above," it is, as it has been, the Church of Rome. What is the use, then, I say, of Parliament violating great principles by the way, amusing itself with hopes and visions as to the effects of entering into ecclesiastical relations with the priests, if over the great leaders of the Church, "the lions of the fold of Judah," as some of them call themselves, you can have no ecclesiastical control. For, if Mr. Pitt could have got this by a concordat, such as the Church of Rome entered into, after his time, with Prussia, and such as regulates the relations of the Romish Church with other States, twenty concordats could not give it you now, under the influence of present circumstances, and those which have existed since the days of Mr. Pitt; and, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman seemed almost in a hurry, some little time ago, to publish, through no less a person than the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that the farthest thing from the contemplation of the Government was the 754 negociation of any concordat with Rome. Why, then, without the power of acquiring ecclesiastical influence, enter into ecclesiastical relations at all? But influence is desirable to you—the Romish Church has great power over the mind of Ireland. I tell you, you must trust for your influence to your civil power—to your justice in civil relations; the good Saxon justice of the right hon. Gentleman will give him influence, which if he seek by more perplexed courses he will only lose. And now let me ask you a very plain practical question, without much reference to principle—though I say again and always, it is on the principle that I resist this Bill—but if you were in the right, and if it were wise to maintain the priests at the cost of the State, is it in your power? I was looking the other day into Hansard for the account of an old debate on Maynooth, it was in 1808 (when by the bye Sir Arthur Wellesley delivered an opinion that it never was originally the intention for the State permanently to contribute to the maintenance of this College); but in that debate, I saw that the number of Roman priests then required for the ordinary service of parishes in Ireland was 3,000. I do not know if it be more now; take it at that amount. How can they be paid? Can you pay them out of the Consolidated Fund? No; for neither the people of England, nor their Representatives, would suffer you? Can you accept the aid offered by the Member for Sheffield? That is neither your intention nor in your power. Can you raise the money by a land tax upon Ireland? Difficulties, I think, greater than those which you seem to have had hitherto much in regard, in approaching questions of Irish taxation, would meet you in the way. And if you could conquer these, what hope of tranquillity can you reasonably rest upon the principle of collateral ecclesiastical establishments? Remember the great variety of religious persuasions of Protestant sects in this country; remember their ardour of religious belief; remember their power as citizens. Do you think you could reasonably object, if the further development of the principle upon which you act, were, in the course of time, and according to circumstances, insisted on by some of these? It may seem unlikely, if you infer from the language of their petitions. Why then, Sir, I say, as their assent to your principle and desire to share in its benefits 755 themselves, would seriously embarrass you, so will their dissent from your principle, their warm, strong, conscientious opposition to it, afford you no reasonable hope of tranquillity. I have heard Gentlemen talk of Canada and Prussia, and of what may be found in other countries. Beware of political parallels. The lines seldom fit; their direction is rarely in true accordance; they are a dangerous foundation on which to build. It is with Great Britain and Ireland that you have got to deal: look to them then, I say, and not to what may exist in Canada, under circumstances peculiar to that country, to half-settled Colonies, where everything is new, where the Government has store of lands; not to what you may find in that half-cemented kingdom of Prussia, where questions arising out of confused ecclesiastical relations are yet to be solved. Sir, I regret the more that the Government should have thought proper to take the course indicated by this Bill, because I did approve, and I am ready to express my acknowledgment of the policy they acted upon last year. I give my full concurrence to the policy of the Charitable Bequests Act; it may not, indeed, have been so original in operation as some have considered it, but, at the very least, it removes hindrances, it prevents frauds, by the substitution of public for private trustees of charitable bequests; and the right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced the Bill, was warranted in saying that great benefits were to be expected from the power which was given to all persons to endow as they pleased their own religion. Sir, I agree in this: it is a clear and defined policy, to which the Government will have cause to look back with regret in proportion as they depart from it. I object to this Bill because it does so depart: I object to this Bill because if I consider it upon its principle—which is the only way in which a Member of the Legislature ought to look at it—it is the commencement, or it may be made at any time the starling point of a policy which offers nothing but stumbling-blocks and impediments. I know not whether the Government will attempt to proceed in it; but I act now, as I must continue to act, upon a principle of another kind—namely, that the State ought not to concern itself with other ecclesiastical relations than those which are necessarily and irrevocably mixed up with its fundamental laws.
§ Mr. Rosslooked on the present measure as the earnest of future measures which he believed the right hon. Baronet opposite had in contemplation. He did not mean to say that he regarded this measure as the initiative of proceedings with respect to ecclesiastical affairs in Ireland; but he looked on it as part of a system intended to open the resources of Ireland, and to heal the wounds which had been inflicted on the minds of the people of that country. In his opinion, the opposition to this Bill was founded neither in reason nor justice. Considering that there was more difference between the Presbyterian religion and the religion of the Church of England, than there was between the latter and the Church of Rome, he did not think it fair, while a Regium Donum was granted to the Presbyterians, that all aid should be withdrawn from the Roman Catholics. Would the House so far forget its proper mission as to make itself a party in these conflicts of religious opinion? If they were to take cognizance of truth and error in these matters, they would have to appoint a Committee of Error; and how would they compose it? He denied that the Roman Catholic priests were such enemies to civil liberty as they had been represented; he thought the Dissenters of this country were much indebted to the Catholics for the assistance they had rendered to the cause of civil and religious freedom. The grant to Maynooth had remained at its present amount ever since 1805, while the grant to different Dissenting bodies had been increased to 36,000l. Even in point of economy the Bill deserved support; if it passed with a good grace they might dispense with three regiments in Ireland at once. Four years since, Lord Wicklow declared in the House of Lords that Ireland was too strong to be governed on any principle but that of equality. He hoped that equality would be established, not only between Ireland and England, but equality among the people of Ireland themselves. If that equality were established, Ireland would become a united and prosperous country, and prove the strength and the right arm of England.
§ Mr. M. Gorewas particularly anxious to express his opinion with respect to a measure affecting a very large body of his fellow-citizens, for whom he entertained the highest regard and respect. He respected their principles, he reverenced their very 757 prejudices, because he thought those principles and prejudices took their rise from religious feelings and sentiments which he hoped would never be extinct in the minds of Englishmen. If he considered the Bill before the House was one that in any way tended to impair the great principles of the Reformation, or to impugn the basis of religious liberty in the country, he would give it as strenuous an opposition as he now offered it a warm and cordial support. Looking at the Bill itself, he must say the ferment raised with respect to it throughout the country was hardly called for. Since he had sat in Parliament, he had always voted for the annual grant to Maynooth, and he had fully intended to have voted for it in future. So far, then, as the principle was concerned, he thought he had admitted the principle by the vote he had already given, as much as he should do by the vote he was about to give. He could not see that in the measure before the House any fresh principle was involved. Looking at the present state of Ireland, he doubted whether it would be wise to propose any measure for maintaining the Catholic clergy or the Catholic Church; such a measure would not be suited to the present times; whether it might have been done at the time of the Union or not, was a distinct consideration; but at the present day nothing of the kind could be effected. Still he hoped this measure would be accompanied by others calculated to promote the real practical benefit of the peasantry and the people of Ireland. In the hope this would be the case, he should give the measure his warm and cordial support. As there seemed to be no objection to the Bill in point of principle, he came next to the consideration whether it was not calculated to confer great and signal benefits and advantages upon the people of Ireland and the Empire at large. Whether he looked at the situation of Ireland in her political relations with regard to this country, or at the state of the affairs of the Kingdom at home and abroad, he conceived no measure would confer a greater benefit on the country, or contribute more to the welfare of the State, than the Bill before them. If they looked at the relations that had existed between this country and Ireland, they would see nothing similar to what had prevailed in other countries between the conquerors and the conquered race. In the instance of the Romans and the Gauls, and the Normans and the Saxons, the conquered had become 758 united with their conquerors by the influence of equal laws and the progress of civilization. In France many provinces which long remained separate and distinct kingdoms had become blended into one united empire. But let them look at their relations with Ireland, and let them ask themselves whether they did not present a painful contrast to other countries? Their process with regard to Ireland had been very different; in all the other cases to which he had alluded, the union had been, what Lord Bacon said a union ought always to be—a real one—a union not merely in name, but in laws, advantages, and employments. Such had been their union with Scotland; and this was the only description of union that could have a real and valid effect. What had all other nations done in the countries they had conquered? What did the Romans do among the nations they subdued? Civilization followed the Roman arms, and the same arm that subdued the people also protected them. A just administration of equal laws removed all marks of the inferiority of a conquered race; and if a people lost their nationality, they received instead, the boon of Roman citizenship. What, according to the great Roman historian, was the conduct of Agricola in Britain?—
Homines dispersi ac rudes, eoque bello faciles, quieti et otio per voluptates assuescerent; hortari privatim, adjuvare publice, ut templa, fora, domus exstruerent laudando promptos, et castigando segnes, ita honoris æmulatio pro necessitate erat.He induced them to have recourse to liberal pursuits, and the arts practised by the Romans. It was by extending equal rights to Chester, Durham, and Wales, countries once quite as barbarous as Ireland had ever been, that the monarchs of England secured them to their kingdom. A lenient policy ought peculiarly to be adopted towards Ireland. For 350 years the Irish had prayed and desired to be admitted into a participation in the laws of England; and our ancestors had for 350 years refused to allow that participation. There was also another circumstance connected with Ireland, which had not been mentioned in that debate. Archbishop Usher had said, that in the early times of Christianity there existed in Ireland a form of religion not very different from the Protestantism we profess. The monarchs of England had used their best endeavours to supplant that form, and to extend to Ireland the Catholic faith; and, having done so, England 759 afterwards turned round and complained of the consequences of her own act. He believed that no one measure could have been introduced better calculated to knit together the different members of the Empire than this measure of Her Majesty's Government, accompanied, as he hoped it would be, by other measures of a healing nature for the mass of the people, and promoting the real welfare and the true interests of Ireland. He gave the Government great credit for having brought forward this Bill, which should have his hearty support; and he was also bound in justice to say that hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House had shown a laudable and manly spirit by giving their support to the Bill, when, by taking a different course, they had it so much in their power to embarrass the Government. Such conduct redounded much to their credit. This was too important a question to be allowed to be dealt with upon mere party considerations. Too long had party prejudices marred the prospects and blighted every measure which was for the advantage of Ireland. He trusted that day was over; and that on whatever other points party spirit might be displayed, either in that House or out of it, Ireland at least would be considered as sacred ground, and that statesmen would consult only her real welfare, and her true and substantial advantage. In giving their support to measures with such an object, let them elevate their minds to the greatness of their calling. They sat there not as the mere Representatives of particular constituencies, but to legislate for a mighty Empire. He believed that the course which Her Majesty's Government had taken, if they looked beyond the present time, which was as nothing in a nation's life, and if they appealed to the judgment of posterity, would be found calculated to lull the violence of faction, that it would shed a its genial influence over a distracted portion of the Empire, would elevate the condition of Ireland, and would add fresh lustre and additional strength to Great Britain. Brighter signs were apparent in the horizon; the landmarks were fast appearing above the receding waters; and he trusted that by adopting this measure they would advance the better prospects now opening upon them. If they looked not to the opinions of the day, but to those which history would pronounce, when the illusions of the present moment were dispelled, they would see that it was a measure for which they ought to be grate- 760 ful, because it would place the prospects of the United Empire on a firm, solid, and lasting foundation. There were a great number of his constituents for whom he had a great regard; there were Members of that House whom he held in the highest estimation, who differed from him; but he had a great public duty to perform: no private considerations should induce him to depart from that duty, or to shrink from promoting the happiness of the great body of his fellow-subjects, and the glory and prosperity of England. He should, therefore, give the measure his most cordial support, fervently hoping that it might be carried through to a triumphant result.
§ Debate again adjourned.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past twelve o'clock.