SECOND READING. (Hansard, 27 February 1867)

§ MR. LAWSON,
in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, its object was to remove another of those disabilities of which the Roman Catholics in Ireland had 30 much reason to complain. The Bill 1131 proposed to throw open the three Professorships of Anatomy and Surgery, Chymistry, and Botany in Trinity College to all persons, without reference to their religious creed. Those Professorships were, he said, founded in 1785, and Roman Catholics were precluded from holding any one of them—a restriction which had been continued up to the present day, when he supposed the most bigoted opponent of that faith would not contend that the religious element ought to enter into any man's mind in the selection of a teacher of those abstract sciences. A Commission, he might add, which sat in 1833, and of which the late Archbishop Whately was a member, recommended the removal of the statutory disability in question; but, although many able men had since then sat in that House as Members for the University, not one of them had proposed to legislate in accordance with that recommendation. The Solicitor General for Ireland, it appeared, had elsewhere found great fault with him for bringing the subject before the House, and seemed to think that the case was one in which no Parliamentary intervention was required; but he would scarcely, he thought, in his place in that assembly, venture to contend that these restrictions ought to be any longer maintained. He had simply to state, further, that he had been in communication with the Queen's Colleges, and the College of Physicians in Ireland, and that they offered no opposition to the Bill, but had made suggestions for its further improvement, which might be introduced in Committee with great advantage.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHATTERTON)
regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not taken the trouble to inform himself accurately as to what had fallen from him on the occasion to which he alluded. What he really did say was that the University of Dublin, which he had the honour to represent, had been charged with being a sectarian institution, but that it was in reality no such thing. He had then adverted to the Bill of which the right hon. Gentleman had just given notice, and referred to the Report of the Commission of 1853—the right hon. Gentleman was in error in giving the date as 1833—to show that that Report had been transmitted by 1132 Lord Palmerston, who was at the time Home Secretary, to the governing body of Trinity College, and that they, on the 28th of June, 1853, had, through the Registrar, who was the organ of the Board, addressed a letter to the Primate of Ireland for the purpose of transmission to the Home Office, in which they stated that, with one or two exceptions, not connected with the present proposal, they gave their unqualified assent to those recommendations which the right hon. Gentleman now made it a merit that he asked the House to adopt. The right hon. Gentleman, too, taunted the Members who had sat for the University for some years past with not having dealt with the subject; but why, he should like to know, was it that he himself had omitted to do so during the time he occupied a seat on the Treasury Bench? As for the Bill itself, believing that it involved no question of principle or compact, he was prepared to give it his support, for he quite concurred with the hon. and learned Gentleman that distinctions between different classes and creeds, when no such question was at issue, ought, if possible, to be dispensed with. He should be happy, in every case in which considerations of religious principle were not involved, to see Roman Catholics placed in exactly the same position with those who held his own creed.

§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE
said, that this was a great day for concessions, and would ever be a memorable ecclesiastical Wednesday in the history of Ireland. He was delighted to find that the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken had assented to the second reading of the Bill, although he was unable to screw his courage up to vote in favour of the last measure which was under the consideration of the House. Owing to the operation of custom, or rather of inveterate prejudice, there was scarcely such a thing as a professional post of honour or emolument which a Roman Catholic gentleman who devoted himself to scientific pursuits could hope to fill in Ireland; and it was therefore with the greatest pleasure he heard that the Board of Trinity College were willing to have those Professorships thrown open.

§ MR. LEFROY
said, that the Board of Trinity College gave their entire concurrence to the proposal for opening their Professorships. One of the chief recommendations in the Report of the Commission was the removal of all religious disqualifications 1133 as to Professorships. He believed that the Bill might be amended in Committee, and that it would prove an effective and useful measure.