§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clause 27 (Enactments with respect to ecclesiastical residences).
§ Amendment again proposed, in page 12, line 14, to leave out from the word "therein" to the end of the Clause.—(Mr. Disraeli.)
MR. GLADSTONE, in order to obviate any misunderstanding, wished to explain what he apprehended to be the precise effect of the Motion upon which the Committee was to vote. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) had moved to omit all the words from the fourteenth line of the clause to the end, the practical effect of which would be that no payment was to be taken in respect of the glebe houses in Ireland. Should, however, the Committee negative the Motion—as the Government trusted they would—the effect of that decision would be to determine that some payment should be taken, but would not fix the precise amount of that payment. The question before the Committee did not, therefore, directly raise the question of the amount of the sum which should be taken in respect of glebe houses; but he thought it would be for the convenience of the Committee that he should state the view he took of the second and main part of the clause. In the second part of the clause two kinds of payment 1857 were named, corresponding with two classes of glebe houses. In the case of the first class of glebe houses there was no building charge, and, with respect to that class, the clause stipulated that their sites should be sold to the representative body of the Church at the moderate valuation of twelve years' purchase. In his opening statement, however, he had mentioned ten years' purchase as the amount fixed upon by the Government; and, consequently, he had give notice of an Amendment to reduce the terms of purchase to that amount. The question was not a large one as far as money was concerned. The more considerable question arose where there was a building charge, and where there was such charge he asked for the re-payment of it. In the first instance, it would be necessary to liquidate the charge. He did not propose to take a larger sum than a moderate valuation, and proposed that the maximum should be ten years, at the Poor Law valuation of the house together with the site. Looking to what had been said the other night, he wished to submit to the Committee, with great respect for the opinions of those who thought differently from the Government, that the plan he now laid before them was founded upon principles of equity as regarded the Church about to be disestablished. When he had spoken last year of giving the parsonages to the Church he had not been aware of the large sums which the State had been called upon to pay in respect of them, or of the sums which the State would be called upon to pay before it could obtain posseesion of them. The effect of the Bill would be to recoup to the State, not the whole, but a considerable portion of those sums. The Government had been able to trace about £1,200,000 as having been expended for these purposes. Undoubtedly, the value of the glebe houses was greater to the Church than to any other body. The Poor Law valuation of them amounted to about £18,000 or £19,000 per annum, and probably their annual letting value would not exceed £24,000 or £2,5,000. With regard to the proposition that the glebe houses should be made over without any payment whatever, it should be remembered that they had been a very notable sign and token in the public eye throughout Ireland of the position of the Established Church, and that in 1858 many cases, if not hundreds, of cases, they afforded both to the eye and to the mind of the public a contrast between the position of the clergyman of the small minority, who was comfortably—and, in many instances handsomely—lodged, and that of the position of the clergyman of the large majority, who, in very many instances, was wholly without an official residence—if he possessed one he owed it entirely to private sources—and who was, unfortunately, in many cases neither handsomely nor comfortably lodged. In dealing with that matter they had not, on the one hand, wished to put out of view the low marketable value of those houses, nor allowed themselves to be guided by the high figure of the cost incurred in respect to them; on the other hand, they had felt that fidelity to their engagements, with respect to the general principle of the Bill, did require that they should, at all events in respect to the land, which was always marketable, fix some condition in the shape of a price for the possession of the glebe houses; and with respect to the large building charges, which must be paid for by the general fund, they should endeavour, within the limits of equity, to obtain some compensation for the payment. Under these circumstances, the Government—ho hoped, without imparting any exaggeration or passion into their view of the ease—had deemed it to be their duty to adhere to the clause as it stood with the Amendments they proposed, and of course it would be for the Committee to decide whether that view was right or wrong.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSunderstood the right hon. Gentleman to decline to accede to the appeal of the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin) to hand over the glebe houses without exacting any payment for them. Last year the right hon. Gentleman had given the country to understand that he was prepared to hand over those houses without charge to the Church Body; but he now stated that he was not then aware of certain circumstances with regard to them which had since come to his knowledge, and which had led him, upon reflection, to recommend the Committee to adopt the proposal he now made. So far, he could follow the meaning of the right hon. Gentleman; but, when he came to assign a reason for that recommendation, he must confess 1859 he could not follow Ms meaning. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the necessity of giving back to the State the money which it had expended. But what money had the State expended, beyond the £150,000, to which the right hon. Gentleman made reference for the first time the other night? The right hon. Gentleman talked about having traced an expenditure of £1,200,000 by the State upon these houses, and about being anxious to get back a portion of that sum. It appeared to him that the £1,200,000 was not expended on behalf of the State, but by individual clergymen and laymen interested in the Church of Ireland. Did the right hon. Gentleman come forward and claim the whole of the sums which had been expended by these persons during the last two or three centuries on the glebe houses in Ireland? Such a claim was the most extraordinary rhetorical artifice he had ever heard. The right hon. Gentleman, when asked to do by the glebe houses as he was prepared to do by Maynooth, had refused to do so on the singular ground that, in his opinion, fifteen years ago, Parliament had acted very unjustly towards Maynooth in refusing to continue the annual Yote for the repairs of the College. But the right hon. Gentleman was the last man in the House who could impeach the wisdom of Parliament in refusing that grant, because he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Member of the Government during the greater part of that period, without having, on any single occasion, proposed to Parliament—as it would have been his duty, under such circumstances, to have done over and over again—a renewal of that grant. Then the right hon. Gentleman told them that if those glebe houses were handed over to the Protestant Episcopal Body free of charge, as he himself last year proposed to hand them over, they would remain as a symbol of that Protestant ascendancy which it was the object of this Bill to put an end to. If that would be the effect of handing over these modest glebe houses, what would be the effect of the gift of the cathedrals and churches? Again, the right hon. Gentleman had said,—and this was the only argument—if argument it could be called—in favour of the proposition of the Government—that, at some remote period, a sum of £152,000 had been voted by Parliament for those 1860 glebe houses. But was it not true that a sum of £37,000 or £38,000 had been voted by Parliament for the erection and repairs of the College of Maynooth? If it was just to remit the payment of this latter sum, what became of the argument against handing over those glebe houses founded on the Parliamentary Vote? He ventured to say that the right hon. Gentleman had made out no case for his present proposition, which was a signal departure from the principle which he himself laid down last year when introducing this question of the Irish Church. The answer of the right hon. Gentleman to the significant appeal made to him on Monday night by the hon. Member for Rochester ought to be sufficient to show those simple-minded persons who had pledged themselves to support the right hon. Gentleman that they had handed themselves over bound hand and foot to the Government. They now found that this was a measure without a single provision of a compensatory character.
§ MR. BAGWELLsaid, he did not know that, during the many years he had sat in the House of Commons, he had ever risen to speak under greater difficulty than that which he experienced on this occasion. He believed that if the Government had acceded to the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin) they would thereby have sent a message of peace and conciliation to the 700,000 members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland. Who had made that body of 700,000 Protestants? The English Government, at a time when it had not statesmanship enough to rule Ireland as an Irish country, but tried to force upon the Irish people English religion and English law. He was one of the 700,000 to whom he had alluded; but ever since he had been first able to form an opinion on political matters he had been of opinion that the principle of religious equality was essential for Ireland. He believed that he had held that opinion before any man on the Treasury Bench, except the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. But was a Church going out on the world without anything in a position of religious equality? Was such a Church in the position of Churches which had been established for hundreds of years? You might as well say to a young man going out to Australia—"Go out and 1861 flourish; you will enjoy full liberty, and be on an equality with every one in the colony." Such a young man would soon find himself in a different position from that of persons who had been established in the colony for fifty or sixty years. He was sure he spoke the feeling of the great majority of the 700,000 when he said that if they were compelled to give up their churches and glebe houses they would themselves build handsomer churches and more commodious residences for their clergy. But would not the Government say anything to conciliate these people? This was a paltry matter. He did not care whether the Government took the Bishops' palaces, which were handsome residences, and with the demesnes would fetch a great deal of money; but, as a rule, the glebe houses were miserable residences, single-bodied houses, standing on high hills, and without a bush to shade them. He did not believe any speculator would buy them for the old materials. He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had not listened to the appeal made to him on that side of the House, because the right hon. Gentleman must know how difficult it was for hon. Members who came there pledged to this great measure—pledged to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church—pledged to make all religions in Ireland equal before the eye of the law—the right hon. Gentleman must know how difficult it was for such Members to give any vote which might seem to present an obstacle to the passing of the Bill. As for himself, he would see every church and every glebe house in Ireland blown up rather than that this Bill should not pass, because he believed that the time for peace, happiness, and good-will in Ireland never would arrive till this question was settled on the principle of complete religious equality. Of course, he knew that anything which he might say on the point now under discussion would be useless; but he must express his opinion that the action of the Government in respect of the glebe houses was not generous or conciliatory.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he was very glad to hear it stated in that House, what he had known before, that his hon. Friend the Member for Colonel (Mr. Bagwell) had been as great an advocate for religious equality in Ireland as he himself 1862 was. He must say, however, that he could not, under any circumstances, agree to any proposition for blowing up the Irish churches and glebe houses. He thought that much better might be done with the glebe houses, and be done with the sanction of all classes in Ireland ultimately, by the proposition contained in this Bill. The hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin) and some other hon. Members the other night—he (Mr. Bright) was not present in the House—quoted observations made by him, he was not sure whether in the House of Commons last Session, or in a speech to his constituents at Birmingham. There was nothing that he had said in regard of a gracious and generous treatment of the now Established Church of Ireland that he was anxious or willing to retract; but the Committee must bear in mind that unless they could convey to the minds of the whole of the people of Ireland that they did what they pretended to do—that they dealt with this question in a spirit of perfect equality—they failed in the essential object of the Bill. He believed that nobody—no member of the Roman Catholic Church—who had spoken or written in public on this matter, had disputed the propriety of leaving the Protestant congregations the buildings in which they were accustomed to worship. Nothing, in his opinion, would have been more harsh or unjust than to have disturbed those congregations in the possession of those buildings in which they meet for public worship; but after that it would, he thought, be seen that the congregations had not the same right—indeed he doubted whether they had any right—to contend that Parliament ought to make them a present of the glebe houses. In his proposition, made, if he recollected rightly, not in that House, but at Birmingham, he had, he believed, proposed to give the Church the glebe houses and a certain limited portion of the land. That proposition extended in his mind to this—that a quantity of land not exceeding five acres should be left to the glebe houses. But then he had another proposal, which was, that in taking that course they should deal with the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics on the same principle. He had even gone so far, as hon. Gentlemen knew, as to make a proposition which many of his friends regarded as 1863 most unreasonable and unjust—a proposition which was distasteful to many people in the Church and in general to the Nonconformists—that the House in distributing this fund might make some allowance to each of these three Churches. The Committee would, therefore, see that he was not one of those who desired to be severe, harsh, or unjust towards the Church which was about to be disestablished. Indeed, he suspected that he had just as much sympathy for these congregations and for their faith as any Gentleman sitting opposite. But the Government had a great work to do, and they had to show to every man in Ireland—even to the Protestants themselves if they would ultimately admit it—that they had been actuated by a wish to do complete and equal justice upon this matter to all religions in that country. Now, the basis that he had proposed a year or two since was not acceptable, as he had said—it was so unacceptable that he did not make the proposition in the House—but in the last Parliament the House passed Resolutions and exhibited a spirit which made it absolutely impossible for the Government to submit his plan to Parliament in their Bill, even if they had regarded that plan as a wise one. The present plan, therefore, was the only possible one, and the Government proposed that every life interest should be fully considered. There was no question in the House now upon that point. The Government had done what he thought was admitted to be just and fair. They had given up the churches to the congregations throughout the country. They proposed to give up the glebe houses, subject only to the debts which were due upon them, but they objected, and, in his opinion, they wisely objected, to hand over any land to the new Church, or to make any further provision for it. The question which came on first in this clause with regard to the land for the sites would not be worth disputing about, if it were not for its principle. His hon. Friend the Member for Clonmel (Mr. Bagwell) had spoken about it as if it were a small matter. The question of the sites would not amount to more than £5,000, and, therefore the Committee would see that were it not for the principle involved in it, the Government would not have opposed the appeal of the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin), on the appeals from 1864 the opposite side of the House. They did oppose them, because they believed that a just line had been drawn, and that it might lead to other proposals which, if adopted, would materially alter the principle of the Bill. The fact was that the 700,000 people to whom his hon. Friend had referred were not unanimous on this question, but he thought they would feel, as a great political matter, that if the Irish Church were to be disestablished and disendowed, and, if it was hoped that any great results would follow in what he might call the pacification of Ireland, it was not the interest of any Protestant that anything should be done which might destroy that feeling of justice and equality which the Government wished to spread and instil in the minds of the whole Roman Catholic population. The Bill had been considered, as would be seen from its clauses, with a care and minuteness never probably exceeded in the case of any measure submitted to that House. It had been balanced, as far as it could be, with a view to carry out what they believed to be the general opinion of the great body of the people of this country, and he hoped that the Committee, seeing the principle upon which it was founded, the care taken in arranging its clauses, and the general justice and equality involved in them—even if they should think that, on some small points, it would be better to make this change or give away that—would give the Government the credit of having done what they believed to be the best; and, in the hope that they would sustain them in what they had done, he confidently appealed to the majority of the Committee.
§ MR. HUNTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright) had told them that this measure was founded on principles of equality; but he did not understand how that could be made out when they considered the difference in the treatment of the Established Church as compared with the treatment of the College of Maynooth. The right hon. Gentleman had told them they would come to the question of Maynooth by-and-by; but he did not think it was for the right hon. Gentleman to say in what order they should consider these questions, or whether they might compare the mode adopted by the Government in dealing with one part of the question with the mode they adopted in dealing with another part. In dealing with the Es- 1865 tablished Church the Government declared that there was a building charge upon glebe houses, and that those glebe houses could not be handed over without the building charges going with them, But in the case of the College of Maynooth there was also a building charge which the Government proposed to excuse altogether. If they dealt with the subject on principles of equality, why should the debt on the College of Maynooth be excused, while the debt on the glebe houses was exacted from the Church Body? When the Bill was last under discussion, the Prime Minister had said it would be a breach of faith on the part of Parliament if they did not pay the charge on Maynooth, and he said, moreover, that it was the original intention of Sir Robert Peel that these charges should be paid. But the question did not concern Sir Robert Peel; in fact, in the language of the day, they might say that it was merely an expression of opinion on the part of Sir Robert Peel; it was a question of the action of this House, which, in 1853, deliberately refused to pass a Vote for repairing the College of Maynooth, and since that time the Vote had never been proposed. It was, therefore, the deliberate intention of Parliament and of successive Governments to pass no Vote for that purpose, and the College of Maynooth ever since had had to go to the Public Works Loan Commissioners to obtain loans for the purpose of carrying on repairs. Was Parliament now to treat Maynooth as though that Vote had been going on ever since, while it treated the Established Church in so different a fashion? If so he could see no such equality in the treatment of the two as the right hon. Gentleman had spoken of.
§ COLONEL GREVILLE-NUGENTsaid, he was surprised that the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Bagwell) should find fault with the Government for adhering to the clause, while at the same time he told the House that he was pledged to disendowment. If the Government were to hand over the glebe houses in the manner proposed, it would amount to a re-endowment of the Church. If all denominations could be endowed in the same manner he (Colonel-Greville Nugent) would have no objection to it; but that would be against the principle of the Bill, which was a measure for general disendowment.
§ SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he could hardly understand how it was that so much confusion in the matter of figures had been introduced into this question. According to one estimate the glebe houses were valued at £1,200,000; according to another the value was put at £250,000; a third estimate gave the amount at £24,000; and the latest estimate, just put forward by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bright) was £5,000. It was, however, a question more of principle and of feeling than of money. The right hon. Gentleman the First Minister of the Crown had spoken of broken faith in connection with the College of Maynooth. "Broken Faith!" Why, what is the whole of this Bill—from beginning to end—but one gigantic act of "broken faith?" Broken faith with the Act of Union; broken faith with the Coronation Oath; broken faith with the whole body of loyal Protestants throughout the whole of Ireland, and with the clergy and curates, who had spent their money in education for the profession which they had undertaken, and who were now to be left without the means of furthering their prospects. On the question of equality and justice, of which so much capital had been made, he would ask what equal justice was there in giving the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth fourteen years' purchase of their Parliamentary Grant, which would amount to an annual endowment of £12,000 or £18,000, according to the mode of investment, and giving to the Protestant clergymen only a life interest in the Irish Church? This measure had been called a message of charity, of conciliation, of pacification. To whom was it a message of pacification? Was it to the Fenians? They do not accept it in that spirit. Was it to those who committed the agrarian outrages which were so frequent? Their acts seem to tell us a different story. Was it a message of pacification to the loyal Protestants of Ulster, or to the clergy of Ireland? I shall be much surprised if it be viewed in that light by them. He could not understand how such language could be applied to such a measure. As to its being a measure of charity, it was curious charity to take money from the Protestant Church in order to give it to the Roman Catholics and to lunatics. It was not charity to give away other people's money. They should remember 1867 two good old proverbs—"Charity begins at home," and "Be just before you are generous." He hoped the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would not think it too late to change his mind, but would give the clergy of Ireland their glebe houses, with the gardens and land attached to them.
§ MR. G. H. MOOREsaid, he was glad they reported Progress on Monday, because the discussion which then ensued and that which had occurred since was worthy consideration and re-consideration. He had considered and re-considered, and the result in his own mind was that the glebe houses rested upon a totally different basis from other endowments with which the Bill dealt. No one could reasonably accuse him of any proclivity towards the Irish Church Establishment. A Catholic who paid tithes in seven parishes in which there was neither church, minister, congregation, nor Protestant communion was not likely to feel much favour towards the Establishment, nor could an Irishman, who for more than twenty-five years had denounced the Irish Church as the fount and origin of all the miseries of Ireland, consistently falter in the work of disendowment. At the same time he thought that disendowment should be carried out not only with a strict regard to justice, but also with much consideration for the feelings of the men affected by it. He was not prepared on this occasion to go into the question of divorce of Church and State upon the strict principles of the system of double entry. Whether the building fund had been paid, what amount of the building fund had been paid out of the resources of the Church, and what amount had been paid out of the resources of the State, and what might be the market value of the glebes compared with their original cost, were matters upon which he intended to say nothing, although there was much to say; he preferred to deal with the matter upon the larger and nobler grounds upon which honourable men were accustomed to act in other matters. Viewing the matter in that light, he saw a great difference between depriving a man of his estate on a question of title and turning him out of doors. These glebe houses—the prices of which they were haggling about—were the old homes of the Protestant clergy of Ireland, and in this respect we 1868 ought to acknowledge the prescriptive right of occupation they have, though it be only an occupation of 300 years, and even though those 300 years may have been years of spoliation and oppression. He would, therefore, be inclined, and he hoped his co-religionists in Ireland would join him, in an appeal to the Government to make a concession to the Protestants and clergy of Ireland, even if it were only as a mark of consideration and good-will. He did not think the Catholics in Ireland had ever been wanting in consideration and good-will to the Protestant clergy in Ireland, whenever they had shown consideration and good-will to the Catholics, and this had been generously and justly acknowledged. An archdeacon, writing from Ireland, said that not only had the Catholics of Ireland always acted towards their Protestant fellow-countrymen with consideration and good-will, but never was that consideration and good-will more favourably shown than now in their period of trial. Such consideration and good-will it should now be their business to show. While he had no sympathy with the Protestant faith, he had every sympathy with the Protestants, and he intended to show it. It had. been said by the President of the Board of Trade that the Government could not make the concession asked for in accordance with the principles of religious equality. If religious equality meant equality of wealth between two denominations, the Bill would not, under any circumstances, confer that. Whatever the Bill might do, the Protestants and the Protestant clergy would be richer than the Catholics; but, if this concession would tend to produce an equality of charity and good-will towards each other, then it would be a great been to Ireland.
§ MR. O'REILLYsaid, he felt it necessary to say at once and emphatically that he could not join in the appeal of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He did not think the Roman Catholics of Ireland generally would join in that appeal to make a free present of the glebe houses of Ireland, not to their present occupiers, but to the Disestablished Church. The hon. Gentleman said they ought to be slow to turn the clergymen out of their houses. But this Bill did not propose to turn any man out of his home. If it did he would op- 1869 pose it. Every family dwelling in those glebe houses would still dwell in them. They were their homes, and would continue so; the only question was whether those houses were to become the property, not of those who inhabited them, but of the Disestablished Church. As to the question of the sites he could join with the hon. Gentleman in saying that the Roman Catholics of Ireland had not shown any spirit of captious objection to the concessions proposed by this Bill. They had fully assented to the proposal for giving the churches to the Protestant congregations, and had not stopped to point out how many churches there were in which no congregations at all, or utterly insignificant congregations, worshipped. He wished to point out how practically this matter would be viewed in relation to equality of treatment of the different religious bodies in Ireland. To the Roman Catholics and Presbyterians they gave no sites, or houses, or lands, and no special facilities for acquiring them. To the Episcopal Church, however, the existing glebe houses were handed over, but where a debt existed the Church was to pay a small purchase money. If the Roman Catholics did not cavil with this, it certainly ill became those to whom it was given to clamour for more. In his own parish the Roman Catholics were three-fourths, and certainly not the richest, of the population. With considerable difficulty they had within the last year raised, by voluntary subscription among themselves, a sum of £1,000 to build a house for their clergyman. They had great difficulty in finding a site; the Legislature afforded them no assistance, and they would leave a debt on the building which the Legislature would not assist them to discharge. Within a very short distance stood the rectory, with a very valuable house, which could not be re- built for £2,000. They did not grudge that to their Protestant neighbours. They were content they should have it; but it was not too much that they should recognize the principle of paying a small sum—say £60—for the site. He thought that was a very small concession to the principle of equality; anything else would be a departure from the principle of the Bill; and if, even in a small matter, they tampered with its principle, they would find themselves, when dealing with other Amendments, and Amend- 1870 Ments made, perhaps, elsewhere, involved in interminable difficulties.
§ MR. RAIKESsaid, he must call attention to the very conjectural character of the legislation which this clause proposed. They were asked to prescribe the conditions of action between a Commission not yet named, which was only in embryo, and a Church Body not even in embryo, which might never have existence or funds to carry out the object in view. In fact, they seemed to be dealing with that question in a spirit very similar to that of a proposal which he had lately seen put forward for the union of the two branches of the house of Bourbon in Spain, and the purport of which was that a daughter of the head of the Carlist party should be married to the Prince of the Asturias, while there was this difficulty in the way of the arrangement, that the bride had not yet been born. Why not adopt the very moderate concession, departing to a very small extent from the principle of the Bill, and assented to by many of the Roman Catholic Members, that the glebe houses should be handed over to the Church Body without payment? He had expected that the Government would have been prepared to make some concessions on this subject which would not have done them any harm in Ireland. He did not know what influence had been brought to bear; but it was hard and unfair for the Church Body to be called on to defray these building charges when the Government proposed to take away the property of the Church. It was only fair that they should at the same time take upon themselves the charges to which that property was liable. George Herbert, addressing his successor in a vicarage, said—
If thou should find a house built to thy mind within thy cost,Serve thou the Lord, give to the poor; my labour is not lost:and that was the labour which they were about to take from the Church.
SIR JOHN ESMONDEsaid, that although he had numerous connections among the Roman Catholics in Ireland yet he did not know of one who was in favour of this Amendment. They wanted equality, but they desired that it should be obtained in the most merciful manner towards those who differed from them, and without surrendering one particle of principle. They felt very 1871 grateful to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for having persevered in carrying it out, and he would find that instead of losing by it he would gain the hearty support of the people of Ireland. He should support the clause as it stood
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he felt the great difficulty in which the Government were placed in dealing with this question; but he could not help expressing his wish that, consistently with their duty, they might consider themselves justified in deferring, in some measure, at least, to the opinion of many Members on that side of the House who had given them a constant and steady support through all the stages of the Bill. He thought they might have drawn a distinction between ecclesiastical residences that were subject to no building charge, and those that were subject to such a charge. With regard to the latter class, the proposal of the Government was perfectly defensible, and to surrender those glebes which had no building charge without exacting payment would be, in fact, endowing again the Disestablished Church to the amount of that charge. But, with regard to those residences which were subject to no building charge, it was hardly worth while to contend for the principle laid down by the Government. They said that if these glebes were given to the Disestablished Church it would be pro tanto an endowment. But the Government took credit for offering them to the Disestablished Church on terms far below their real value. Now, if that were so, their principle would not be fully carried into effect, and they must upon their own assumption expect that dissatisfaction would be created by their parting with that property for prices much below what they would fetch in the open market. With regard to the Amendment before the Committee, he had no hesitation in voting against it, because his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) had clearly shown that if the Committee adopted it and omitted the words, the whole of the residences, including those which were subject to the building charge, would necessarily be given to the Disestablished Church without exacting any payment for them. By voting against the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli)—which was the only question before the Committee—they left open 1872 the other question as to whether any distinction should be made between the two classes of residences. Upon this point he should be glad to find that the Government were prepared to make some concession. ["No!"] He knew there was some difference of opinion between hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House; but they would excuse him if he and others who sat near him, and who were anxious to give the Government the utmost support in carrying this measure, differed from them on this point. He felt bound to add that he entirely concurred in the equity, justice, and policy of the proposal made by his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade at Birmingham, that these residences should all be given to the Disestablished Church, and that the principle of equality should be carried into effect by also giving residences both to the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian clergymen. He could not help thinking that they had been rather hasty in assuming that to carry out such a proposition was impossible, and that there had been a want of moral courage in abstaining from dealing with this question, and taking the sense of Parliament upon it. And although he believed there was a strong prejudice in the country against what was supposed to be the endowment of a Church holding doctrines which so large a portion of the people believed to be erroneous, yet such an arrangement would have been distinct from an endowment in the ordinary sense of the word, and would have had the effect of producing religious equality more fully than will otherwise be the case. He did not know whether it was now too late for such a plan to be considered; but he thought that if it were carried out it would afford by far the best solution of the question.
THE O'CONOR DONsaid, he agreed with his right hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) that the adoption of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would establish perfect religious equality, and to such a proposal he would offer no opposition, but that was not the question before the House. What would happen if the Government gave way upon the present question? There would then be places in Ireland where the Roman Catholics could not even obtain a site for erecting a church 1873 or a building for their clergymen, while another religious body, which comprised but a comparatively small portion of the population, would have obtained, free of all expense, a church and a residence for their minister. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) had alluded to the Maynooth Grant. Now, he (The O'Conor Don) did not think that was the proper time for entering into any general discussion of that subject. But, as one of the trustees of Maynooth College, and on behalf of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, he would make a fair offer to the right hon. Gentleman. They were quite willing that the proposed remission of its debt to Maynooth College, and the proposed giving over of the buildings of that College to the trustees, should be expunged from the Bill, and that the College and all its offices and buildings should be put up for sale and disposed of as the Government might think fit, provided the same measure was extended to all the churches and glebe houses of the Established Church in Ireland. He would also make this further offer—that if the money which had been expended on the erection of Maynooth College and its appurtenances, exclusive of the sums granted by Parliament either for their erection or maintenance, were re-paid to the trustees of the Roman Catholic body in Ireland, they would be ready to hand over those buildings the moment the Bill came into operation. They would, in fact, rather receive back the money expended on the buildings from other sources than Parliamentary Grants, than to have such large, and, to some extent, unsuitable erections thrown upon their hands when the Parliamentary Grant was withdrawn. When so much was said, therefore, of the advantages to Roman Catholics of Maynooth, it was sufficient to say that they were willing to give up all those advantages on being re-paid the money expended from sources other than the Parliamentary Grants made for this purpose on the buildings of the establishment.
MR. STEWART HARDYpointed out that the Committee had wandered from the question which had been put from the Chair, and to which he proposed to address himself. The hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. P. Wykeham-Martin) did not, apparently, so much object to the proposal of the Government upon 1874 its merits as to feel that, in quoting the expressions made use of by the now Prime Minister, he had pledged himself to do all in his power to hand over the glebe houses to the Church Body without any payment whatever being made for them. Hon Members on the other side of the House could not have forgotten those expressions, and, if they did, those on his side of the House well remembered the use that was made of those expressions during the contest last year. The question was, whether the supporters of the Government were bound by the expressions they made use of in the country to hand over the glebe houses without any further payment. The questions of equality and justice had nothing to do with the matter; it was a question of conscientiousness. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had stated that further information had led him to believe he was wrong in his anticipations, and that he was, therefore, not bound by what he had before said. The conscience of the hon. Member for Rochester appeared to be more tender, and he had no doubt many others felt with him that they were being placed in a false position by being urged by their Leader to go back from what they had said in canvassing, if not in their speeches, during the contest last year. In the name of the Opposition he thanked the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore) for the only kind word for the Irish clergy, backed by the offer of a deed which had come from the Government side of the House during this debate; and he thanked the Committee for the hearing accorded to him.
§ SIR JOHN GRAYappealed to the Government not to abandon a vital principle of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright) who had suggested that an equal amount of glebe lands be given to Catholics, Presbyterians, and Wesleyans, and that the existing Protestant glebe houses and lands form the standard, as to amount, he could understand the proposition as one based on the principle of equality. But that was not his proposition. The suggestion made upon the other side was that the glebe houses were built by the incumbents, and were their own—not State property or part of the public fund enjoyed by the State Church. If that were so, why did not the heirs of the builders claim and retain them. But 1875 it was not so. These houses were all built as part of a contract with the State. When the incumbent came into possession, he came in on the condition of building a parochial residence, or maintaining it if built. That is the law to this day; it was the law at all times, and the old charters of the first Charles, under which such large grants of the glebe lands were given to the Church in Ulster out of the lands of the Catholic owners who were expelled, conveyed these lands on the express condition that a parochial residence be built "within three years," and maintained in good repair. All the charters contained a covenant that the incumbents and "their successors, rectors and vicars" should build houses "of stone or brick, with lime and mortar;" and in default, that the King should enter, seize the issues, and profits by the dean, archdeacon, and two justices of the peace, and expend the same in building mansions. In all the grants and in every Act now in force, down to the Act of 1851, known as Napier's Act, the identical principle of sequestration in case of default was included. The glebe houses, then, were as much parts of public property as the glebe lands, for the incumbent got the land and incumbency on the condition of building a house and maintaining it for himself and handing it down to his successors in good repair. But they had been told it was ungenerous not to give up the glebe houses in globo. He wished to remind the Committee that all the houses that were not incumbered with building charges, were, under the Bill, to be handed over, free of charge, to the new body. The Commissioners would have to pay the building charges, wherever they existed; and to hand them over, without purchase, would not only be giving a present, as was the case with the uncharged houses, but would be buying with public money from private individuals, in order to make gifts to the Church community. These building charges were due to the heirs of the incumbents by the succeeding incumbents, and would not go back, in any form, to the State. The public must pay them; and having paid them it was not consistent with the principle of the Bill to hand over the purchased property as a new endowment for the Church, and he hoped the Government would not do it.
§ Question put, "That the words" upon the payment to the Commissioners of such sum as is hereinafter mentioned, that is to say,' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 318; Noes 227: Majority 91.
1879| AYES. | |
| Acland, T. D. | Clay, J. |
| Agar-Ellis, hn. L. G. F. | Clive, Col. E. |
| Akroyd, E. | Cogan, rt. hn. W. H. F. |
| Allen, W. S. | Colebrooke, Sir T. E. |
| Amcotts, Col. W. C. | Coleridge, Sir J. D. |
| Amory, J. H. | Collier, Sir R. P. |
| Anderson, G. | Colthurst, Sir G. C. |
| Anstruther, Sir R. | Cowen, J. |
| Antrobus, E. | Cowper, hon. H. F. |
| Armitstead, G. | Craufurd, E. H. J. |
| Ayrton, A. S. | Crossley, Sir F. |
| Aytoun, R. S. | Dalglish, R. |
| Backhouse, E. | Dalrymple, D. |
| Baines, E. | D'Arcey, M. P. |
| Baker, R. B. W. | Davie, Sir H. R. F. |
| Barry, A. H. S. | Davies, R. |
| Bass, M. A. | Davison, J. R. |
| Baxter, W. E. | Delahunty, J. |
| Bazley, T. | De La Poer, E. |
| Beaumont, Capt. F. | Denison, E. |
| Beaumont, S. A. | Denman, hon. G. |
| Beaumont, W. B. | Dent, J. D. |
| Bentall, E. H. | Devereux, R. J. |
| Biddulph, M. | Dickinson, S. S. |
| Blake, J. A. | Digby, K. T. |
| Blennerhassett, Sir R. | Dilke, C. W. |
| Bolckow, H. W. F. | Dillwyn, L. L. |
| Bonham-Carter, J. | Dixon, G. |
| Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P. | Dodds, J. |
| Bowring, E. A. | Downing, M'C. |
| Brady, J. | Dowse, R. |
| Brand, right hon. H. | Duff, M. E. G. |
| Brassey, H. A. | Duff, R. W. |
| Brewer, Dr. | Dundas, F. |
| Bright, rt. hon. J. | Edwardes, hon. Col. W. |
| Bright, J. (Manchester) | Edwards, H. |
| Brinckman, Capt. | Egerton, Capt. hon. F. |
| Brocklehurst, W. C. | Enfield, Viscount |
| Brown, A. H. | Ennis, J. J. |
| Bruce, Lord C. | Erskine, Vice-Ad. J.E. |
| Bruce, rt. hon. H. A. | Esmonde, Sir J. |
| Buller, Sir E. M. | Ewing, H. E. C. |
| Burke, Viscount | Eykyn, R. |
| Bury, Viscount | Fagan, Captain |
| Cadogan, hon. F. W. | Fawcett, H. |
| Campbell, H. | FitzGerald, right hon. Lord O. A. |
| Candlish, J. | |
| Cardwell, rt. hon. E. | Fitzmaurice, Lord E. |
| Carington, hon. Cap. W. | Fletcher, I. |
| Carnegie, hon. C. | Fordyce, W. D. |
| Carter, Mr. Alderman | Forster, C. |
| Cartwright, W. C. | Forster, rt. hon. W. E. |
| Castlerosse, Viscount | Fortescue, rt. hon. C. P. |
| Cave, T. | Fortescue, hon. D. F. |
| Cavendish, Lord F. C. | Fothergill, R. |
| Cavendish, Lord G. | Fowler, W. |
| Chadwick, D. | Gavin, Major |
| Chambers, M. | Gilpin, C. |
| Chambers, T. | Gladstone, rt. hn. W.E. |
| Childers, rt. hn. H.C.E. | Gladstone, W. H. |
| Cholmeley, Capt. | Goldsmid, Sir F. H. |
| Cholmeley, Sir M. | Gower, hon. E. F. L. |
| Gower, Lord R. | M'Laren, D. |
| Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. | M'Mahon, P. |
| Gourley, E. T. | Maguire, J. F. |
| Graham, W. | Maitland. Sir A. C. R. G. |
| Gray, Sir J. | Magniac, C. |
| Gregory, W. H. | Marling, S. S. |
| Greville, Captain | Martin, C. W. |
| Greville-Nugent, Col. | Martin, P. W. |
| Grey, rt. hon. Sir G. | Mathews, H. |
| Grieve, J. J. | Miall, E. |
| Grosvenor, Earl | Milbank, F. A. |
| Grosvenor, Lord R. | Milton, Viscount |
| Grosvenor, Capt. R. W | Moncreiff, rt. hon. J. |
| Grove, T. F. | Monk, C. J. |
| Hadfield, G. | Monsell, rt. hon. W. |
| Hamilton, E. W. T. | Moore, C. |
| Hamilton, J. G. C. | Morgan, G. O. |
| Harcourt. W. G. G. V.V. | Morley, S. |
| Hardcastle, J. A. | Morrison, W. |
| Harris, J. D. | Mundella, A. J. |
| Hartington, Marquess of | Muntz, P. H. |
| Hay, Lord J. | Murphy, N. D. |
| Headlam, rt. hon. T. E. | Nicol, J. D. |
| Henderson, J. | North, F. |
| Henley, Lord | Norwood, C. M. |
| Herbert, H. A. | O'Brien, Sir P. |
| Hoare, Sir H. A. | O'Conor, D. M. |
| Hodgkinson, G. | O'Conor Don, The |
| Holms, J. | O'Donoghue, The |
| Hoskyns, C. Wren- | Ogilvy, Sir J. |
| Howard, hon. C. W. G. | O'Loghlen, rt. hon. Sir C. M. |
| Howard, J. | |
| Hughes, T. | Onslow, G. |
| Hughes, W. B. | O'Reilly, M. W. |
| Hutt, rt. hon. Sir W. | O'Reilly-Dease, M. |
| Hyde, Lord | Otway, A. J. |
| James, H. | Palmer, J. H. |
| Jardine, R. | Parker, C. S. |
| Johnston, A. | Parry, L. Jones- |
| Johnstone, Sir H. | Pease, J. W. |
| King, hon. P. J. L. | Peel, A. W. |
| Kinglake, J. A. | Pelham, Lord |
| Kingscote, Colonel | Pim, J. |
| Kinnaird, hon. A. F. | Platt, J. |
| Kirk, W. | Playfair, L. |
| Knatchbull - Hugessen, E. H. | Plimsoll, S. |
| Pochin, H. D. | |
| Layard, rt. hon. A. H. | Pollard-Urquhart, W. |
| Lambert, N. G. | Portman, hon. W. H. B. |
| Lawrence, J. C. | Potter, E. |
| Lawrence, W. | Potter, T. B. |
| Lawson, Sir W. | Power, J. T. |
| Lea, T. | Price, W. E. |
| Leatham, E. A. | Ramsden, Sir J. W. |
| Lee, W. | Rathbone, W. |
| Lefevre, G. J. S. | Rebow, J. G. |
| Lewis, J. D. | Reed, C. |
| Lloyd, Sir T. D. | Richard, H. |
| Loch, G. | Robertson, D. |
| Locke, J. | Roden, W. S. |
| Lorne, Marquess of | Rothschild, Brn. L. N. de |
| Lowe, rt. hon. R. | Rothschild, Brn. M. A. de |
| Lush, Dr. | Rothschild, N. M. de |
| Lusk, A. | Russell, A. |
| Lyttelton, hon. C. G. | Russell, F. W. |
| M'Arthur, W. | Russell, H. |
| M'Clean, J. R. | Rylands, P. |
| M'Clure, T. | St. Aubyn, J. |
| M'Combie, W. | St. Lawrence, Viscount |
| MacEvoy, E. | Salomons, Mr. Ald. |
| Macfie, R. A. | Samuda, J. D'A. |
| Mackintosh, E. W. | Samuelson, B. |
| M'Lagan, P. | Samuelson, H. B. |
| Sartoris, E. J. | Trelawny, Sir J. S. |
| Scott, Sir W. | Trevelyan, G. O. |
| Seely, C. | Verney, Sir H. |
| Shaw, R. | Villiers, rt. hon. C. P. |
| Shaw, W. | Vivian, A. P. |
| Sherlock, D. | Vivian, Capt. hn. J. C. W. |
| Sherriff, A. C. | Walter, J. |
| Simeon, Sir J. | Wedderburn, Sir D. |
| Simon, Mr. Serjeant | West, H. W. |
| Smith, J. B. | Westhead, J. P. B. |
| Smith, T. E. | Whalley, G. H. |
| Stanley, hon. W. O. | Whatman, J. |
| Stansfeld, rt. hon. J. | Whitbread, S. |
| Stapleton, J. | White, hon. Capt. C. |
| Stepney, Colonel | Whitwell, J. |
| Stevenson, J. C. | Whitworth, T. |
| Stone, W. H. | Williams, W. |
| Strutt, hon. H. | Williamson, Sir H. |
| Sullivan, rt. hon. E. | Willyams, E. W. B. |
| Sykes, Colonel W. H. | Wingfield, Sir C. |
| Syrian, E. J. | Winterbotham, H. S. P. |
| Talbot, C. R. M. | Woods, H. |
| Taylor, P. A. | Young, A. W. |
| Tite, W. | Young, G. |
| Tollemache, hon. F. J. | TELLERS. |
| Torrens, R. R. | Glyn, G. G. |
| Tracy, hon, C. R. D. H. | Adam, W. P. |
| NOES. | |
| Adderley, rt. hn. C. B. | Conolly, T. |
| Allen, Major | Courtenay, Viscount |
| Amphlett, R. P. | Crichton, Viscount |
| Annesley, hon. Col. H. | Croft, Sir H. G. D. |
| Archdall, Capt. M. | Cross, R. A. |
| Arkwright, A. P. | Cubitt, G. |
| Arkwright, R. | Curzon, Viscount |
| Bagge, Sir W. | Dalrymple, C. |
| Bailey, Sir J. R. | Damer, Capt. Dawson- |
| Ball, J. T. | Dawson, R. P. |
| Baring, T. | De Grey, hon. T. |
| Barnett, H. | Denison, C. B. |
| Barrington, Viscount | Dimsdale, R. |
| Bartelot, Colonel | Disraeli, rt. hon. B. |
| Bateson, Sir T. | Dowdeswell, W. E. |
| Bathurst, A. A. | Du Pre, C. G. |
| Beach, Sir M. H. | Dyott, Colonel R. |
| Beach, W. W. B. | Eaton, H. W. |
| Bective, Earl of | Egerton, hon. A. F. |
| Benyon, R. | Egerton, E. C. |
| Booth, Sir R. G. | Egerton, Sir P. G. |
| Bourke, Hon. R. | Egerton, hon. W. |
| Bright, R. | Elliot, G. |
| Brise, Colonel R. | Elphinstone, Sir J. D. H. |
| Broadley, W. H. H. | Ewing, A. O. |
| Brodrick, hon. W. | Fellowes, E. |
| Bruce, Sir H. H. | Figgins, J. |
| Bruen, H. | Finch, G. H. |
| Buckley, Sir E. | Floyer, J. |
| Burrell, Sir P. | Foljambe, F. J. S. |
| Butler-Johnstone, H. A. | Forde, Colonel |
| Cameron, D. | Forester, rt. hon. Gen. |
| Cartwright, F. | Fowler, R. N. |
| Cave, right hon. S. | Galway, Viscount |
| Cawley, C. E. | Gilpin, Colonel |
| Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G. | Goldney, G. |
| Chaplin, H. | Gooch, Sir D. |
| Charley, W. T. | Gore, J. R. O. |
| Child, Sir S. | Gore, W. R. O. |
| Clifton, Sir R. J. | Grant, Col. hon. J. |
| Clive, Col. hon. G. W. | Graves, S. R. |
| Clowes, S. W. | Gray, Lieut.-Col. |
| Cole, Col. hon. H. A. | Greaves, E. |
| Collins, T. | Greene, E. |
| Gregory, G. B. | North, Colonel |
| Guest, A. E. | Northcote, right hon. Sir S. H. |
| Gurney, rt. hon. R. | |
| Hambro, C. | O'Neill, hon. E. |
| Hamilton, Lord C. | Paget, R. H. |
| Hamilton, Lord G. | Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J. |
| Hamilton, I. T. | Palk, Sir L. |
| Hamilton, Marquess of | Palmer, Sir R. |
| Hardy, rt. hon. G. | Parker, Major W. |
| Hardy, J. | Peek, H. W. |
| Hardy, J. S. | Peel, rt. hon. Sir R. |
| Hay, Sir J. C. D. | Pell, A. |
| Henley, rt, hon. J. W. | Pemberton, E. L. |
| Henniker - Major, hon. J. M. | Percy, Earl |
| Phipps, C. P. | |
| Henry, J. S. | Raikes, H. C. |
| Herbert, rt. hn. Gen. P. | Read, C. S. |
| Hermon, E. | Ridley, M. W. |
| Heryey, Lord A. H. C. | Round, J. |
| Hesketh, Sir T. G. | Sandon, Viscount |
| Heygate, Sir F. W. | Saunderson, E. |
| Hick, J. | Sclater-Booth, G. |
| Hildyard, T. B. T. | Scourfield, J. H. |
| Hill, A. S. | Selwin - Ibbetson, Sir H. J. |
| Hoare, P. M. | |
| Holford, R. S. | Seymour, G. H. |
| Holmesdale, Viscount | Shirley, S. E. |
| Hood, Captain hon. A. W. A. N. | Sidebottom, J. |
| Simonds, W. B. | |
| Hope, A. J. B. B. | Smith, A. |
| Hornby, E. K. | Smith, F. C. |
| Howes, E. | Smith, R. |
| Hunt, right hn. G. W. | Smith, S. G. |
| Button, J. | Smith, W. H. |
| Ingram, H. F. M. | Stanley, hon. F. |
| Jenkinson, Sir G. S. | Stanley, Lord |
| Jervis, Colonel | Starkie, J. P. C. |
| Jones, J. | Stopford, S. G. |
| Kavanagh, A. M. | Stronge, Sir J. M. |
| Kekewich, S. T. | Sturt, H. G. |
| Keown, W. | Sturt, Lieut.-Col. N. |
| Knight, F. W. | Sykes, C. |
| Knightley, Sir R. | Talbot, J. G. |
| Knox, hon. Colonel S. | Taylor, rt. hon. Col. |
| Langton, W. H. P. G. | Thynne, Lord H. F. |
| Lefroy, A. | Tipping, W. |
| Legh, W. J. | Tollemache, J. |
| Lennox, Lord G. G. | Trevor, Lord A. E. H. |
| Lennox, Lord H. G. | Turner, C. |
| Liddell, hon. H. G. | Turnor, E. |
| Lindsay, hon. Col. C. | Vance, J. |
| Lindsay, Col. R. L. | Vandeleur, Colonel |
| Lopes, H. C. | Verner, E. W. |
| Lopes, Sir M. | Verner, W. |
| Lowther, J. | Vickers, S. |
| Lowther, W. | Walpole, rt. hon. S. H. |
| Malcolm, J. W. | Walsh, hon. A. |
| Manners, Lord G. J. | Waterhouse, S. |
| Manners, rt. hon. Ld. J. | Welby, W. E. |
| March, Earl of | Wells, W. |
| Meller, Colonel | Wethered, T. O. |
| Mellor, T. W. | Wheelhouse, W. S. J. |
| Milles, hon. G. W. | Whitmore, H. |
| Mills, C. H. | Williams, C. H. |
| Mitford, W. T. | Williams, F. M. |
| Montagu, rt. hn Lord R. | Wilmot, H. |
| Moore, G. H. | Winn, R. |
| Morgan, C. O. | Wise, H. C. |
| Morgan, hon. Major | Wright, Colonel |
| Mowbray, rt. hn. J. R. | Wyndham, hon. P. |
| Neville-Grenville, R. | TELLERS. |
| Newdegate, C. N. | Noel, Hon. G. J. |
| Newport, Viscount | Dyke, W. H. |
§ VISCOUNT CRICHTONasked the Attorney General for Ireland whether the Church Body would have power to dispose of any glebe houses that might be conveyed to them by the Commissioners? In some cases it might be desirable that they should do so, with the view of purchasing more suitable buildings.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, there would be no restraint whatever in the matter referred to by the noble Lord.
§ SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he had heard, with surprise, the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. His strong impression was that, as the Church Body would take under this Bill, and as this Bill did not give any power of alienation, there would be restraint.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, perhaps the learned Attorney General for Ireland would turn his attention to the point, and, if necessary, make an alteration in the Bill to remove all doubt upon the subject.
§ SIR ROUNDELL PALMERassumed that it was the intention of the Government that tenants holding under Church leases should, after the passing of this Bill, have the right of renewal which they now possessed. He thought it would be desirable to introduce a provision which would make this matter more clear.
§ DR. BALLsuggested that a clause should be introduced which would more clearly define the power of the Church Body to deal with individuals in respect of houses and land.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, that in his opinion, and that of other lawyers, the leasing power of Bishops and the right of tenants to have renewals were strictly preserved in this Bill. At the same time, he admitted that it was desirable to use words of abundant caution in Bills of this kind, and therefore the matter would be further considered.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 28 (Power to convey additional land to church body).
§ SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, that he had given notice of an Amendment in line 42; but, after the division that had just been taken, he felt that he had no chance of inducing the Committee to adopt it. He hoped that the Government would consider the subject, and 1881 not limit the number of acres which the Church Body might buy in connection with an ecclesiastical residence, as there might be many cases in which such a course would be very injurious. The hon. Baronet then moved—
Line 42, leave out all after 'the Commismissioners' to the end of the Clause, and insert 'shall vest in the said representative body of the said Church all glebe land which at the time of the passing of this Act belongs to and has been usually occupied with such ecclesiastical residence; and any vesting order made by the Commissioners in pursuance of this Clause shall have annexed thereto a map accurately defining the land thereby vested.
MR. GLADSTONEthanked the hon. Member for not pressing his Amendment, and whilst declaring that he felt compelled to retain the limitation of the number of acres as the general rule, said that he was not averse to an extension of the quantity of land in exceptional cases. It might be either that the value of the land, or what the Scotch called "amenities" of the residence might suffer from a strict rule of this kind, and therefore, an Amendment had been prepared to meet such cases by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, with the assistance of the right hon. and learned Gentlemen the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), who in this matter had acted in a very conciliatory manner.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN) moved an Amendment, the object of which is to empower the Commissioners to vest in the Church Body a greater quantity of land than ten acres in connection with an ecclesiastical residence, where it shall appear to them, that for the convenient enjoyment of the residence, an additional quantity should be granted.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 29 (Enactments with respect to private endowments).
§ MR. G. GREGORY moved that the date 1608 should be substituted for 1660, and the lands held or derived under any Royal Grant or letters patent subsequent to that date should be treated in the same manner as these endowments. The Amendment involved two points, the date, and the property with which the clause dealt. As regarded the date 1882 at present standing in the Bill, it had been stated, when the Bill was introduced, that it had been adopted because it was at that period that the Churches of England and Ireland became harmonious, or identical in creed. That statement had, however, to a great extent, been met by the argument of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), and of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), from which it appeared that it was but for a period of nineteen years that there was any difference in the Articles of the two Churches, and that with that exception they had been identically the same since the Reformation. As to the property involved in the Amendment, it consisted of a series of grants of land, comprising 130,000 acres, about 113,000 of which were in Ulster, which grants were made, as was proved by the terms of the deeds and letters patent conveying them, for the establishment of the Protestant religion. After reading the recitals from several of these grants, he contended, upon that evidence, that they were clearly intended as donations, not to the religion of the majority of the people of Ireland, but of the minority. When Ulster was settled, inducements were held out to the settlers that their religion would be maintained, and those endowments were given for that purpose, and it was shown that in that province the Episcopalian congregations averaged in each parish from 700 to 800 souls. You had, therefore, all the elements of property—namely, a grant from the Crown, an uninterrupted possession of 250 years, and the purposes for which the grant was made fulfilled in every respect. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side were fond of deriving analogies from Canada and the United States. He would remind the Committee that in Canada certain lands of considerable value were reserved to the Church, and they now formed a permanent endowment, while Holy Trinity Church in New York had property yielding an immense annual income. He might not agree with all the language which had been used by those opposed to this Bill, but, seeing how property of this nature had been dealt with in other countries, one could not be surprised that those in this country who felt strongly had expressed themselves strongly, and 1883 the Government would do well to regard their language not as idle menace, but as the expression of strong conviction. He asked whether it was worth while for the Government, by the passing a stringent measure, to run the chance of discontenting what had hitherto been the most loyal portion of the Irish population? The alienation of this property had been justified on the ground of the supreme right of the State, and he did not question that abstract right; but to exercise it without sufficient grounds was not only the conduct of the despot, but of the tyrant—in fact, the simple sic volo sic jubeo. Again it was argued that the purposes to which it was intended to apply this property not only justified but sanctified the proposal. He, for one, could not sympathize with the sentiment or understand this vicarious charity. It appeared to him merely the alienation of the property of one man for the purposes of another, and reminded him of the conduct of some testators, who endeavoured on their death-bed to compound for their misdeeds by leaving their property away from their families, and being guilty of what an eminent lawyer had to call charity, was a profanation of the word. It might be said that he had treated the question on narrow and what were termed Chancery principles. He was content that it should be so; and, if it was alleged that his profession was tenacious of the rights of property he admitted it as a distinction. For himself he desired no more enduring record than that he respected in others, and strove to maintain for them those rights which he believed to be guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the country, and which, as such, he desired to exercise and to enjoy himself. In conclusion, he moved to amend the clause, by making it read that where any real or personal property becoming vested in the Commissioners "is held or derived under any Royal Grant or letters patent bearing date subsequently to the year 1608," it should, on the application of the Representative Body of the Church, be vested in the body of the Commissioners, the Amendment being to insert the words quoted in the clause.
§ MR. LIDDELLsaid, a point had been reached in this work of peace and conciliation at which the most earnest labourer might ask permission to pause 1884 and take breath, and at which even the Prime Minister might venture to take a look into the future. He himself was not sanguine as to the future of the Irish Church. History showed that the landlords of Ireland had received more from the Church than they had ever given to it; and although no doubt some noble efforts would be made by the landlords for the support of the Church in the future, he was very much deceived if those numerous landlords, who would continue to pay the rent-charge for forty-five years, would have any considerable sum left at their disposal for the service of the Church. The support of the Church and the clergy then became a matter of private endowment. The principle of the Bill was to respect private endowments, and he wished the Committee to consider the mode in which they were to be dealt with. This was a question which affected every religious body in Ireland. The Roman Catholics had very large private endowments which he wished to see respected, and he called upon them to assist others in respecting the right of private endowments. The Prime Minister had fixed a line antecedent to which he refused to recognize private endowments. That line was drawn at 1660, and, as he thought, most unfortunately chosen, for 1660 was the period of the Restoration. The first Act passed after that event was the Act of Succession, which not only restored and settled the property of the Church, but the estates of almost all the proprietors of land in Ireland. Their estates were held under precisely the same title as that by which the Church property was held; and it was a curious fact that the 101st clause of the Act of Succession conferred on the ancestors of Lord Lansdowne great estates in the South of Ireland. By fixing that period the Government by their Bill proclaimed to the landlords of Ireland the insecurity of the titles by which they held their property. An arbitrary line had been drawn, rather for the purpose of extricating the Government from a difficulty, than any particular regard to the interests of the Church. The Prime Minister stated that he had fixed upon the period, because after that time the people knew what they were doing, and to whom they were leaving their property. The right hon. Gentleman rested his arguments on two main points—the schism which had prevailed in the Church 1885 previous to that time, and the adoption of the famous, or infamous, as the case might be, Lambeth Articles by the Irish Convocation in 1615—and said that the clergy could not be looked upon as legally enjoying the property. There could be no doubt that at that period some of the ordinations were very irregular; but he would ask was the House to be told that, because certain loose Prelates and looser Puritans condescended to base subterfuges, and ignored the law of God and Apostolic usage in order to acquire and enjoy the emoluments of the Church—that, because these irregularities had been connived at, therefore, the property was not the property of the Church? He contended that this did not invalidate the title of the Church estates and revenues, and that any argument based on such grounds ought not to be accepted as a reason for not respecting the property of the Church. There could be no doubt that the men who had been irregularly ordained entered the Church for the purpose of enjoying the property of the Church, and Bishop Bramhall, the Primate of Ireland, in 1661 called upon some of them to produce their certificates of ordination; he said he disputed not the value of their ordination, but now that there was a national Church limited by law and a prescribed ordination, he knew not how they could recover the means of the Church if anybody should refuse to pay the tithe because they were not ordained as the law required. This showed how they came into possession of the property which the Church then possessed, and of which the arbitrary line now proposed would deprive the Church. But the evil did not stop there. There was a great deal more involved in the principle laid down. It involved the property of Trinity College, of the London companies, and of the endowments of many schools founded for the education of the clergy at that time. It made him tremble for the property of Greenwich Hospital, which was derived from estates escheated for certain acts of so-called rebellion. He must own that he was much alarmed by one expression which had been used by the Premier. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the case of Trinity College must be, at no distant day, considered. Now, there was a great and marked difference between considera- 1886 tion of a thing and consideration for a thing. One implied pity, but the other implied plunder; and if they were to part without a struggle with the Ulster grants, he was afraid any further struggle would be useless. Entertaining these views, he implored the House to consider well what was involved in the desecration of private endowments, and therefore should cordially and warmly support the Amendment, hoping thereby to secure, at least, for the Disestablished. Church of Ireland the whole of her private endowments.
§ SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he could not understand why the hon. Gentleman (Mr. G. Gregory)' had fixed upon the date mentioned in the Amendment. He (Sir Roundell Palmer) thought that the year 1560 was the true date which ought to be selected, and not 1608. If the hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to divide to give effect to his opinion, he would vote with him. The question was, however, different from private endowments, and it was not expedient to mix up the two together.
§ MR. G. GREGORYexplained, that he had taken 1608 because it was an early date in the reign of James I.
§ MR. DISRAELIsaid, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Amendment. It would be desirable for the House first to confine itself to private endowments, and then to proceed to mixed endowments.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he thought they ought not to pass from this matter without recollecting that there was a period of our history, during the Commonwealth, when this country was ruled by a Legislature, and led by an authority who, although he did not admit the validity of ordination more than the President of the Board of Trade, still respected the private endowments of the Church, and did not consider that their titles rested on what that right hon. Gentleman called ecclesiastical rubbish. Throughout the whole period of his power, Cromwell respected that property—not on account of any supposed title on the part of the clergyman individually, but on the real ground that it was the property of the Church, by which he meant the congregations. As he (Mr. Newdegate) was descended from Cromwell's Chief Justice he had a right to state the principles on which the Church property was preserved du- 1887 ring that period. As those rights of the laity—of the congregations—were always respected by Cromwell, he hoped they would not be ignored now. Cromwell's legislation with the Long Parliament would compare favourably in this respect with that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. DISRAELI, in rising to move, page 13, line 19, after the word "resources" to leave out "since the year 1660," said, the language of the right hon. Gentleman opposite at the time he gave his reasons for the limitation contained in the clause was not very satisfactory to me, and, after the greatest consideration, I am confirmed in my first impression. We are on a clause of the Bill on which there is no diversity of opinion as to the principle, which is a very great advantage. We all agree that private endowments to the Church should be preserved to the Church after it is disestablished and disendowed. The Government and the Gentlemen on this side of the House are agreed on this principle, and it is generally accepted by the Committee. I think also we agree in this, that the only point to ascertain is that these private endowments should have been made to the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland. I use that phrase because it is the accepted description in the Articles of Union. I understood from the right hon. Gentleman, when he made the exposition of his policy, that he could not recognize that private endowments were made to the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland before the year 1660, and his reasons were these—that before that period, there was no identity between the Churches of England and Ireland, and that they were not of the same legislative frame and character. That is a broad and intelligible reason, and one with which one can fairly grapple. The right hon. Gentleman also declared that the same doctrines were not maintained by the two Churches, and that they had not practically the same form of government. As to the identity between the two Churches, I will confine myself to the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles, embracing a period which extended from 1562 to 1641. I have looked to some of the principal Episcopal appointments made to the Church of Ireland, and I 1888 see that Queen Elizabeth, on her accession, found the Archbishopric of Armagh vacant, and presented her own chaplain, Adam Loftus, to the archbishopric. That looks very much like identity. In 1568, Thomas Lancaster, Archbishop of Armagh, had a license from Queen Elizabeth to hold in commendam the treasurer ship of Salisbury and certain livings of England. In 1582, Marmaduke Middleton, Bishop of Waterford, was translated to St. David's. In the same year Hugh Allen, Prebendary of Sarum, was made Bishop of Ferns. In 1593, John Thornborough, Dean of York, was made Bishop of Limerick, translated to Bristol in 1603, and to Worcester in 1617. Coming now to the reign of James I., I find that in 1604, Eichard Bancroft, Prebendary of St. Patrick's, was made Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1605, Roger Dod, Dean of Salop, was made Bishop of Clonard. In 1605, George Montgomery, Dean of Norwich, was made Bishop of Meath and Bishop of Clogher. In 1611, Andrew Knox, Bishop of Orkney, was made Bishop of Raphoe. I now come to the reign of Charles I. In 1627, William Murray, Bishop of Kilfenora, was translated to Llandaff. In 1629, William Bedell, ordained in England, was made Bishop of Kilmore. In 1633, John Leslie, Bishop of Orkney, was made Bishop of Raphoe. In 1634, George Webb, chaplain of Charles I., was made Bishop of Limerick. In 1640, John Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, in Scotland, was made Bishop of Killala, and Archbishop of Tuam in 1645. In 1641, James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, held the Bishopric of Carlisle in commendam from that year until 1656. One word as to the reign of Charles II. In 1660, John Bramhall, Prebendary of York and sub-dean of Eipon, was made Archbishop of Armagh. In 1667, Dr. William Fuller was translated from Limerick to Lincoln. That list of Bishops of England and Ireland, reciprocally preferred to important dioceses in either kingdoms during these three reigns, is strong primâ facie evidence of identity between the two Churches. I do not, in fact, see how you can have primâ facie evidence which is much stronger. In regard to Adam Loftus, he was not appointed with any carelessness. I see in a letter written by Walsingham, that after Queen Elizabeth had appointed Loftus to the 1889 archbishopric of that Church, which the right hon. Gentleman tells us had no identity either in government, doctrine, or legislative frame and character, the Queen appeared to have heard something not favourable to the religious opinions of Loftus, for she kept her eye on him for some time. About 1567 he laboured under some suspicion of favouring the Puritans, and in the same year he addressed a letter to Walsingham (to be found in the State Paper Office, but not contained in Walsingham's published letters), in which he says—
Some little inkling hath been given mo (whether truly or not God knoweth) that Her Majesty hath been informed I am a Puritan, and favour Cartwright and his doctrine. Truly, I am ignorant of what the term and accusation of Puritan meaneth.That was the language of an English Prelate, preferred to an Irish see in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and I think that, taking the large and generous view which should be taken on such a question, that that was a feeling which always prevailed. The right hon. Gentleman has said much upon the difference of doctrine between the Church of Ireland and the Church of England, and he has referred to certain Articles which was drawn up by Archbishop Usher in 1615. Now, Usher was not an Archbishop in 1615. He held then a subordinate position in the Church, but he certainly drew up those Articles in which the Lambeth Articles were contained. The Lambeth Articles, however, were drawn up by Bishops, and they formed but a small portion of the Articles drawn up by Dr. Usher, who was afterwards the celebrated Archbishop. But are we to understand, when this important question of the right of the Church to its private endowments is before us—are we to understand that the profession of Calvinistic doctrines at that time deprives the Church of those endowments, or shows that the Irish Church had not the same legislative frame and character as the English Church? I can hardly believe that the right hon. Gentleman can seriously lay down that principle as one which ought to influence our legislation. But I will refer now to very recent incidents in our own Church history. I do not mention them either to blame or to maintain them, but merely as historical facts. The late Lord Palmerston recommended Her Majesty to prefer to bishoprics clergymen of 1890 great eminence and of very high moral and intellectual character, who professed strong Calvinistic opinions, who acted upon those opinions, and do in their dioceses form, I believe, a majority of the northern Bishops. But no one would maintain that, in consequence of their professing those opinions, and acting upon them with great decision, they alter the legislative frame and character of the Church of England. I think that is hardly an opinion which the right hon. Gentleman could for a moment insist upon. We know very well that in those times, as the necessary consequence of great religious changes, there was a long struggle going on between Presbyterians and Episcopalians in Ireland, but that was not peculiar to Ireland, and was just as rife in England at that time. It is a fact beyond doubt, that in the Temple Church, Venerable Hooker and Cartwright, the Presbyterian, used to preach on alternate Sundays and answer each other; but the right hon. Gentleman, I hope, will not adduce that fact, if the private endowments of the English Church are ever in question, as a reason why the Church could not claim those endowments at that time. What then was the use of the right hon. Gentleman calling our attention to this point, and impressing it upon us in language so very strong? He has told us very impressingly—It may not be known to all who hear me—though it ought to be known, and it tends strongly to justify us in not going beyond the Restoration—that the very Confession, the doctrinal Confession, of the Irish Church in the resign of James I. and Charles I. was not the same as that in England.I say that the facts to which I have referred do not in the least justify the right hon. Gentleman in using such strong expressions and drawing such inferences. Grant that in 1615, Dr. Usher—not yet an Archbishop, though he was quoted as such—and, therefore, his name would have the greater weight with the House—grant that he did. draw up these Articles. I suppose at the time they were very serviceable Articles—at least, I observe they bear a different title to that which the right hon. Gentleman would assume to be their object; for, instead of enforcing the severe principles of the Lamboth Articles, they are called "Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland in 1891 the Convocation held in Dublin in 1615, for the avoiding of diversities of opinion and doctrine;" and the consequence is that throughout the Articles they avoid anything like definition of dogma. But this is in 1615. We are to fix upon 1660 as the first period when the Church of Ireland has identity of character with the Church of England, and has the same legislative form and character, because, in 1615, Dr. Usher drew up Articles of a Calvinistic character, and the Church of Ireland did not accept the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Now, that was the Convocation of 1615. I turn to the proceedings of the next Irish Convocation, in 1634, when, that eminent man, Dr. Usher was really an Archbishop, having become Archbishop of Armagh, and presided over the Convocation. What was the first thing they did? It was to accept and recognize the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Therefore, the whole argument of the right hon. Gentlemen, that, because in 1615 the Irish Church did not recognize the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, it was not entitled to its private endowments till 1660, entirely falls to the ground, since in the Convocation of 1634 the Church of Ireland did formally recognize and accept the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. I think I have shown the Committee that there was complete identity between the Churches of England and Ireland, for a long list of Prelates—many of them selected from England, and in communion always with the English Bishops—prove that identity, and I say you could not have stronger primâ facie evidence of it. I think I have shown to the Committee that there is really no strength in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman—that there was not the same legislative shape and character between the Irish and the English Churches, because the Thirty-nine Articles were not accepted, and, therefore, that 1660 must be fixed upon as the date for private endowments—for, if the point were worthy of consideration, it could not support the inference of the right hon. Gentleman, seeing that the Irish Church formally accepted the Thirty-nine Articles in the Convocation of 1634. Now, I come to the third point made by the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that there was a difference in the form of government be- 1892 tween the constitution of the Church of Ireland and that of the English Church. Now, the constitution of an Episcopal Church is government by Bishops and by presbyters. The constitution of a Presbyterian body is a government by presbyters alone. We have heard some stories from my hon. Friend (Mr. Liddell) illustrating some laxity by which ordination was granted in those days in Ireland. I do not doubt that similar stories might be found in the history of the English Church at that time. But questions of this magnitude are not to be decided by stories of that kind. You have before you the strongest evidence in the world as to the identity of government and the form of government—namely, a list of Prelates who during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. were alternately preferred from the two Churches, the Irish Prelates being always in constant communication with the English Bishops. Some of these stories respecting the laxity of ordination in Ireland have recently been given in a periodical publication. I do not approve as a general rule making quotations from periodical publications in this House, nor am I now about to quote from Punch or Judy or the Pall Mall Gazette, or attempt to answer any of those leading articles written by master pens which from day to day and week to week enlighten the world as to the principles on which it should be governed. But there are some periodical publications, published at those sober intervals which allow of research and reflection, and which are quoted in the House of Commons, partly because they are recognized as the organs of great parties, and partly because they recall the memory of eminent men who had occupied seats in the House and who at various times had been contributors to their pages. I am alluding, of course, to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. The Edinburgh Review may, I believe, be regarded as being still partially the organ of hon. Gentlemen opposite, or, to use the memorable words of the Postmaster General, as being, at all events, the organ of the "educated section of his party." Now, I saw in an article which appeared conveniently in that Review on the subject of the Irish Church at the time when the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was delivered, or immediately previous, 1893 some stones respecting the ordinations of clergymen of the Church of Ireland in the reign of the Sovereign to whom I have referred; but I had no idea that those stories were to be made the foundation of so portentous a result as the projected legislation of the right hon. Gentleman on this question. In the article of which I am speaking we are told first, with extraordinary inconsistency, that James I. established a great many Presbyterian ministers in Ulster; "but," continues the Review, "we must not at all suppose from that fact that those Presbyterians were not sincerely members of the Church of England, or rather of the Church of Ireland.'' Then we are told that the ordinations were carried on in a very peculiar manner, that the presbyters and Bishops were both in a room together, and that then, somehow or another, the ceremony of ordination was fulfilled. But if an ordination was held, and a Bishop was present, it was an Episcopal ordination, and nothing more was required. No ordination occurs in England otherwise, there are always Bishops and presbyters present, and so far, therefore, as these wild and inconsistent tales are concerned, they only tend to prove Episcopal ordination. The most peculiar thing, however, in the article in the great organ of hon. Gentlemen opposite is the wonder with which it announces that, notwithstanding all this, those Presbyterian clergymen were members of the Convocation of 1634. Now that remarkable statement led me to look into the canons of the Irish Convocation of 1634, and the point is one to which I would particularly invite the attention of the Committee. Not to mention Canon 2 of that Convocation, which states that any person who shall impeach in any part the Royal supremacy shall be excommunicated, and not be restored except by the Archbishop, Canon 3 lays it down that no form of Liturgy shall be used except the Book of Common Prayer, and any one who spoke in derogation of it should. also be excommunicated, and Canon 4. that—No ordination shall be used in the Church of Ireland but that contained in the Book of ordering Bishops, Priests, and Deacons to be ordained, allowed by authority, and hitherto practised in the Churches of England and Ireland, and whosoever shall contravene it, would separate himself from the Church of Ireland, and set up any other congregation shall be excommunicated.1894 Now, I want the Committee, looking calmly at what I have stated, to say whether it is true, as the right hon. Gentleman opposite has endeavoured to persuade us, that there was no identity between the Churches of England and Ireland; that there was a difference in the doctrines of the two Churches; that the form of government was so different that they had not the legislative shape and character which now prevailed in the Church of England? It may be in the power of the right hon. Gentleman to divide the future Church Body in Ireland from those private bequests, and he may do so conscientiously and in the performance of what he believes to be a great act of policy; but that he can found that policy on the facts of history is a conclusion from which I must beg altogether to demur. I have, I maintain, shown the Committee that there was a complete identity between the two Churches; that their doctrines did not differ, or, if they did differ, not more substantially than the doctrines of the Church of England among different sections of it, that there was complete Church government; and that the order of government had never for a moment been remitted. All. at the utmost, for which the right hon. Gentleman can contend—he cannot prove it—is that there was an interval between 1615 and the Convocation of 1634 when there was not an identity between the two Churches—that is to say, between the drawing up of the Articles of Usher and the time of the Convocation. But, supposing that there was an interval of nineteen years of that character, would that fact, I would ask, justify the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived and the date of 1660 on which he has fixed? In a case of this kind, when you appeal to history, you must, whether you be in a majority or a minority, decide in accordance with that which is the truth, and to my mind the facts, as I have laid them before the Committee, destroy the whole argument of the right hon. Gentleman. Here I would again remind the Committee there is no contest of principle. The Government concurs in the view that the Church is entitled to these private bequests, and only expresses a doubt as to whether during a certain period she possessed a legislative shape and character. I think I have shown that she fully possessed 1895 that shape and character, that there was identity in all respects between the two Churches, and complete communion. I trust, therefore, that if the Government does not assent to the Amendment which I propose, it will, at all events, receive the sanction of the Committee.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 13, line 19, to leave out the words "since the year sixteen hundred and sixty."—(Mr. Disraeli.)
§ MR. CONOLLYsaid, he would presume to follow, at a respectful distance, the very lucid argument which had been addressed to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire. In the absence of all other reasons for choosing the date which had been fixed upon as affecting private endowments, he might assume that it was selected with the view of excluding the endowments of Archbishop Bramhall. He had reason to believe that an authentic record of that Prelate's endowments was preserved at Lambeth Palace, and he felt inclined to move that a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for the production of that record. The endowments in question amounted to no less than £40,000 a year, and he certainly thought the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had acted somewhat shabbily in fixing the date so as to exclude them from the operation of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman's arguments in favour of choosing that date were perfectly threadbare, and had been completely refuted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire. For his own part, he entertained a very strong opinion that Archbishop Bramhall's endowments ought to be preserved to the Church in Ireland.
§ MR. VERNON HARCOURTthought that, before discussing the propriety of fixing on the particular date at which private endowments should be dealt with, the House ought to ascertain what relation private endowments bore to the question now under consideration. Everybody was aware that, with reference to the private estates of individuals, the law had declared that entails should be limited, and should not extend beyond the existence of lives in being, or twenty-one years afterwards. But with regard to other property than private estates the case was different. Subject to the limitations of the Law of Mortmain, 1896 there existed a legal power to create what were termed endowments in connection with charitable and religious foundations; but, when the law permitted endowments to be extended beyond that period to which the law limited the entails of private estates, the State also claimed to exercise over these endowments a public control which it never pretended to exercise over private property. Was this a new doctrine? a revolutionary doctrine? ["Yes!"] Let them test this. He saw opposite the right hon. Gentleman who represented the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy). The University abounded in private endowments which had been diverted to public purposes. He might refer, as a further illustration of his argument, to the case of close fellowships and close scholarships in the Universities. A person in Westmoreland, for instance, left property to found a scholarship for the inhabitants of his county; but it had not been held contrary to the law to prevent that endowment being perpetuated, in the precise form specified in the gift, beyond the ordinary term for which an entail would be suffered to be created. He ventured to say, in the presence of his right hon. Friend, that he would not condemn such a diversion of the original destination of the foundation, because to maintain it would be injurious to the University which he so worthily represented. Limitations had been repeatedly broken, and the property applied to purposes wholly different from those named by the founder. His right hon. Friend and himself had frequently enjoyed the hospitality of the great foundation of All Souls' College, which had been endowed by funds originally bequeathed by Archbishop Chichele to insure the perpetual offering up of prayers for the souls of the dead; but the present managers of that establishment devoted themselves to what was, perhaps, the more useful object of taking care of the living; and, very recently, a portion of these funds had been devoted to the creation of a professorship of modern history, a science for which it cannot be supposed that Archbishop Chichele had any particular value or any special knowledge. The State claimed these rights with reference to endowments of that character for the general advantage of the nation. Were it not so, endowments would be positively unendurable, as stereotyping the obsolete 1897 ideas and antiquated habits of another age, and to prevent the objectionable results which must ensue the Act of Mortmain had been passed by our ancestors. It was on this ground that the Court of Chancery was often applied to to alter the application of charitable funds; and Sir William Grant, one of the greatest masters of equity principles, had said that if once any charitable intentions were discovered in a testator, the Court at once proceeded to make him charitable in its own way and according to its own principles, even to the extent of devoting his bequest not only to objects within his intention, but wholly adverse to it. This being the doctrine of Chancery with regard to testators who died yesterday, could it be said that Parliament should have no control over the destination of an endowment because the testator died in the 17th century? The State wisely refused to allow any men to impress for ever the thoughts and habits of one generation on the land of England. That was the principle on which the Irish Church Commission, of which the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball) was a distinguished member, had acted. There was a certain corporation in Ireland called "The Vicars Choral of Armagh," which held an estate in the county of Down, of the value of about £900 a year, under a bequest made by Primate Lindsay at the commencement of the last century. The Report of the Committee in reference to that and similar property contained the following passage:—
We recommend that all those minor corporations, or quasi corporations, including the Vicars Choral of Armagh, be dissolved.That was the way in which the Irish Church Commissioners proposed to deal with a corporation which enjoyed its property under a bequest made within the last 150 years. But that was not all. There was another class of corporations in Ireland called deans and chapters, and with respect to them he found the following passage in the Report of the same Commissioners:—We accordingly recommend that, with the exception of eight, all the existing corporations of deans and chapters be dissolved, and the deaneries and other dignitaries connected therewith be suppressed.Yet these are the gentlemen who denounce us for disregard of the rights of 1898 property! Had these corporations no private estates, and were none of them created subsequently to 1660? To say that the endowment of these prostrate corporations would be given back to the whole body of the Church was small consolation to the individuals dispossessed. What would the corporation of London say if it were proposed to abolish it and hand over the funds to the corporation of Newcastle? Would his right hon. and learned Friend opposite (Dr. Ball) tell him that if he had been dealing with a private estate he would have dealt with it as he had dealt with Church property in the Report of the Irish Church Commission? If they took property away from a corporation to which it belonged the whole act of confiscation, if they chose to call it so, was complete, and they would not modify the character of the act in any manner by the way in which they should afterwards dispose of it. If they deprived a man of his property it made no difference whether they gave it to his brother or to a stranger. When they took property away it was no longer a question of property, but of policy as to how they might ultimately deal with it. He did not see his right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole) in his place; but his right hon. Friend was one of the last men whom anyone would regard as an ecclesiastical spoliator, and yet he was lately an Ecclesiastical Commissioner of England. What was the nature of the operations conducted by the Ecclesiastical Commission of England? Why to deal with property that had been spoliated. Almost all the capitular property of the English cathedrals had passed into the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and his right hon. Friend had not thought it wrong to distribute those funds for other purposes than those to which they had been specially devoted by the founders. As far as the argument founded upon the nature of private estates went, it was not the question how they dealt with this property, but that they dealt with it at all. Whether the property was to be dealt with in one manner or another was a question of policy for Parliament to decide. The State had always claimed the right to deal with it, and had in fact always dealt with it, and therefore the only question they had to discuss was how it was fit and expedient that this 1899 property should be disposed of; whether it should be left in its present hands or devoted to some other purpose which should be more beneficial to the public and to the State.
§ MR. CHAPLIN, as a new Member, asked the indulgence of the Committee whilst he ventured to make a few observations upon the immediate question before them. Up to that time he had refrained from taking any part in the discussions, whether on the second reading of the Bill or in the earlier stages of Committee, because he thought it would have been presumptuous in him to urge his own. views as to the expediency of the measure, in opposition to hon. Gentlemen of such vast experience, and still more if he ventured to predict what would have been its probable results. But the question of a measure was a question quite apart from its expediency, and he thought any person of ordinary intellect, however deficient in political experience, competent to pronounce 'an opinion on a question of justice and good faith. Indeed, he thought that the absence of this experience might even be an advantage, for it appeared as if, in some cases, the sense of justice became nearly blinded through a long course of political experience. With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, he maintained that in this Bill not only was perfect justice not done, but in more than one instance, and notably in this clause, that injustice might deliberately be perpetrated. He had the less hesitation in expressing his views on this clause, because it appeared to him that the discussion was of a somewhat different character to any that preceded it. He thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite, and especially the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, were bound no longer to maintain that almost absolute silence which had been so marked a characteristic of the earlier discussions of the Committee. Although right hon. Gentlemen opposite might prefer to rely rather on the majority at their backs than upon argument or reason, and although the country had through their majority given an unmistakable evidence of its opinion on the general question, he nevertheless contended that the present clause raised a totally different question, and upon which the voice of the country had not been heard. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, was bound, for the satisfaction of the 1900 country, to substantiate his policy upon this point, and to vindicate his method of proceeding with respect to private endowments, on which not only the country at large, but he believed also a majority of Members of that House, were completely ignorant until the night he made his announcement. He admitted—indeed, it would be folly to deny—that the voice of the country had expressed an undoubted opinion on the main principles of the Bill. Perhaps it would have been more correct to say that the country had expressed its opinion that there should be legislation on the subject without pledging itself to any particular Bill, for that was impossible, as there was no Bill before it. If there was one thing more strongly instilled into the notion of the country at large more than another by the right hon. Gentleman himself as one of the essential principles of the Bill it was that private endowments were to be considered not as gifts to the State, but as gifts to those religious persuasions to which, in the first instance, they had been given, and that all private endowments were therefore to be religiously respected. But private endowments as spoken of then were totally different from private endowments as now understood by the right hon. Gentleman, which dated, according to him, from 1660. But that was a reservation which the country never contemplated. He was at a loss to know by what process of reason or argument the right hon. Gentleman had been able to satisfy himself that private endowments given for the game purpose precisely, and possibly in some instances by the same people, were to be treated as such from and after 1660 and fail to be so treated in 1659. The right hon. Gentleman, on the night he introduced the measure, stated that the reason why he had fixed upon 1660 as the limitation was that that was the year of the Restoration and the period when the Church of Ireland first assumed its present legislative state and character, and he went on to say that the doctrinal Confession of the Church in Ireland in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. was not the same as that in the Church of England, in fact, that the constitutions of the two Churches up to this point were totally different. Now what was the fact? From 1565 to 1615, in all essential respects the two Churches were practically the same. It was quite true that in 1615 the Articles to which the right hon. Gen- 1901 tleman referred, and which wore designated as the Lambeth. Creed, were adopted in the Convocation of that day, but they were never made legal by Parliament. And what happened? In 1634, only nineteen years afterwards, they were again superseded by the Irish Convocation which then assembled, and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England declared to be the doctrine of the Church. In point of fact for 300 years, the Liturgy and Articles of the two Churches were precisely the same, with the exception of nineteen years and nineteen only; and it is upon that nineteen years, in a period extending over three centuries, that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government at once seizes as a pretext for despoiling the Church of a great portion of her private property. On the right hon. Gentleman's own showing, if there was to be any limitation as to private endowments, the year 1634 ought to have been taken instead of 1660; for from the first of those dates—and he defied contradiction on that point—the constitution, Liturgy, Articles, and Prayer Book of the two Churches had been exactly the same without any interregnum, and they had remained the same up to this moment. It was matter of undoubted history that large private endowments had been given to the Church previous to that date. In 1633, Bishop Bramhall resigned all preferment in England, and went to Ireland at the earnest request of Lord Deputy Wentworth, being specially induced to go there by the lamentable state into which the affairs of the Church there had fallen. He applied his attention to those affairs with such remarkable success that, by dint of personal exertions, by loans from the rich, by large voluntary contributions, but chiefly and mainly from his own private resources, he was enabled to place to the credit of that Church a sum which, with subsequent accumulations, was estimated by some at £30,000, and by others at £40,000 a year. In 1637, on his return to England, he gave an account of his labours to the Archbishop of Canterbury. If these facts were correct, he had a right to ask by what rule of justice or reason had the right hon. Gentleman recognized the principle that private endowments must be respected from 1660, and not before? There was another point on which he was anxious to say a few words. Although the endowments to which he 1902 was now about to refer were not, strictly speaking, of a private character, they were somewhat akin to them. They formed part of the terms of an arrangement resulting from an agreement entered into between two contracting parties. In the reign of James I., by the rebellion of certain Irish chiefs, a large tract of country in Ulster, consisting of six counties and 500,000 acres, was escheated to the Crown; and at that time a project was conceived by the King to colonize that territory. One of the principal points in that scheme related to the proportion of land to be divided among the settlers; the second point provided that the whole of the land in each county was to be divided into four parts, and those four parts were to be subsequently re-divided; and the third—with which they were now more particularly concerned—was that each proportion should be made into a parish, that in each parish a church should be built, and an incumbent should be endowed with certain glebe lands and other endowments. The county of Tyrone was dealt with first in that way; and, after the whole of the land had been divided in the prescribed proportions, the Commissioners, before any allotment or division was made to the intended settlers, proceeded to declare that they thought it convenient first to make a deduction from the whole for the support of the clergy and the Church in that county. The motive of that was obvious. The King knew that full security for the enjoyment of their religious worship would be a special inducement to the settlers to come from England and Scotland, and without some such security it was only reasonable to suppose that probably they would never have gone into Ulster at all. All these arrangements being concluded, and provision made for the service of the Church, the division of lands among the settlers was decided upon, and the project of colonization was carried out by a few of the native Irish, but mainly by Protestant emigrants from Scotland and England. Having in view, then, the terms of that arrangement with the settlers and the conditions on which they held their lands, the settlers and their descendants had a right to regard the provision made for the Church as part and parcel of the agreement entered into with them by the King. How the settlers had fulfilled their part of the 1903 compact was shown by the contrast between the state of Ulster and that of the rest of Ireland. By their energy, peacefulness, and industry, they had faithfully carried out, in every respect, their share of the agreement, and they had formed a nucleus of loyalty and attachment to the Crown of this country which had frequently proved a source of strength to the Empire in time of need. And now, in recompense for all that, what did the Government propose to do by that Bill? Although it was not denied that the Protestant settlers had, in every respect, fulfilled their part of the bargain, the Government proposed no longer to fulfil its share of the agreement; it proposed to repudiate its engagement, to break faith with the Protestant people, and take away from them endowments of which it had no more right to deprive them than of the land itself which was originally divided among them. They were, therefore, entitled to demand from the right hon. Gentleman a fuller and more ample justification of his policy on those points than any he had yet adduced. When charged with injustice towards the Protestant curates of Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman said that justice had two sides; that they must be just not only to the curates, but also to the unfortunate classes to whom the residue of the Church funds were to be applied. In Heaven's name, then, let justice be done to those unfortunate persons; but, let it not be justice to one class at the expense of another. A weaker defence than that of the right hon. Gentleman for a sterner act of injustice had never proceeded from the lips of a Minister. He thanked the Committee for the patience with which they had listened to him; and he apologized to them if the strength of his feelings had betrayed him into any undue warmth of expression. He knew well that by many who sat opposite to him that measure was thought to be urgently needful for the welfare of the country, and he was ready to admit that by none was it believed to be more necessary than by the statesman who had first introduced it. But he could not allow that it was right to commit the slightest injustice. Let the benefit be what it might in future, he had yet to learn that it was lawful to do evil that good might come. He refused, for one, to subscribe to that doctrine; and he trusted the day was far distant when the House of Commons 1904 would affirm that justice, however small, must give way to expediency, however great.
MR. GLADSTONESir, the hon. Member who has just sat down has admonished us, and myself in particular, that the sense of justice is apt to grow dull under the influence of a long Parliamentary experience. But there is one sentiment which I can assure him does not grow dull under the influence of a long Parliamentary experience, and that is the sense of pleasure when I hear—whether upon these Benches or upon those opposite to me—an able, and at the same time frank, ingenuous, and manly statement of opinion, and one of such a character as to show me that the man who makes it is a real addition to the intellectual and moral worth and strength of Parliament. Having said this, I express my thanks to the hon. Member for having sharply challenged us; it is right we should be so challenged, and we do not shrink from it. If there be a distinction between expediency and justice in this question, it is not we who seek to shelter ourselves behind that distinction. If this measure is anything else than just, in God's name let it perish. We support it as wise, we support it as politic; but, above all, we support it as just in the highest sense of the word. We may differ in our views as to what is just; it is permitted to men so to differ. These claims, which grow up out of the complications of past ages, are matters which it is difficult indeed for human judgment to penetrate and order; but the hon. Gentleman, who has, I must say, done us full justice in giving us credit for sincerity, may rely upon it we shall never be backward in meeting him or others upon the grounds that he marks out for us; it is then we shall be ever ready to descend and do our best for the cause which we believe to be right. Now, it would, perhaps, be more convenient to postpone the discussion of that portion of the hon. Member's speech relating to what I may call the Ulster Covenant until we come to the Amendment in which it is proposed virtually to include the grants of James I., because the Amendment upon which we are now engaged would not include them. I will, therefore, say only that when the hon. Member speaks of the bargain that was made and the necessity of keeping it, I must observe that, though a covenant 1905 may have been made between James I. and the Protestant settlers of Ulster, in the first place, I know not how those who look down the pages of history can think that the bargain has ever been kept as respects the major portion of these Protestant settlers in Ulster—namely, the Presbyterians. And I may also say that from that covenant was absent the men who had a paramount right to be consulted—namely, the men of the Irish nation. I will now confine myself to the question of private endowments, and firstly I will inquire what is a private endowment? Why are we to establish in this Bill a separate category for private endowments, and, dividing them from the mass of what we affirm to be national property—namely, the property of the Church—to keep them back and attach and appropriate them to the particular religious community that is about to exist in a disestablished condition? Let us consider what are the points necessary to make up the definition of private endowments, such as we are justified in keeping from the general mass. In the first place, it must be an endowment from the private resources of a private person; in the second place, it must be devoted to the endowing of a particular religious persuasion; and if it is given to an establishment, it must be given to it not in its character as an establishment, but in its character of a definite religious persuasion; lastly, it must be a gift to the same distinct religious persuasion as that on whose behalf it is proposed to be severed from the general mass. Now, these are not unreasonable descriptions of the convictions which we have in view as framers of the Bill when we speak of private endowments; and we have construed private endowments in a manner the most liberal and most favourable to what is now the Established Church of Ireland. We have never once inquired whether the private donor, since 1660, gave his donation to the Established Church of Ireland because it corresponded with his private convictions in religion, or because it was the national Established religion of the country—and that is no unimportant distinction. I suspect that if we were to examine these private endowments we should find there were multitudes of them given to the national Established Church because it was the national Established Church. [Opposition cheers.] Just so, and there- 1906 fore the endowment must follow the fate of the national Establishment. I do not suppose that hon. Gentlemen opposite will find it difficult to make a case satisfactory to their own minds for sparing these private endowments; but we also have to make a case satisfactory to our minds. We thought it wiser, on the whole, to overlook this point; but, if we had not overlooked it, and had proceeded in the pettifogging spirit with which some may be ready to charge us, we might in many cases have discovered that these endowments were given to the national Establishment of Ireland, and not to the professors of the Episcopal religion. These things happen every day; my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Robertson) could name to us many Presbyterian churches which have been founded and endowed by men who are not Presbyterians, who have no special sympathy with the body, and who do not desire the spread of its peculiar opinions. We all know of one instance which applies. Miss Courts founded two bishoprics in the colonies, but when she discovered that there was no regular appeal from those dioceses to the ecclesiastical authorities at home and through them to the Privy Council, which she had thought existed, she claimed a restoration of the endowments. In the same way it might be argued that these private endowments of the Irish Church should revert to the successors of the original donors, because the real conditions they contemplated had not been carried out as soon as the religion came to be disestablished. We have traced back with considerable definiteness to 1660 a well-understood religious system as the Established religion, because that was a time when Puritans or Nonconformists—call them what you will—became a body external to the Established Church. Down to that time they were, more or less, within its pale, struggling for the mastery, and that in all the three countries. In England least, in Ireland more, and in Scotland with a distinct and unfailing preponderance over the Episcopal party. The argument of the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire has been founded upon a total misconception of the nature of the argument I have endeavoured to put before you. I never considered for a moment that the title of the Irish Church to its possessions was one whit better or worse after 1660 than before. I never meant that conformity to, or dissent 1907 from, the Church of England was a test of a good or bad title to the property of the Church in Ireland. I argued to show that to make out the case of a private endowment you must show it was given to a definite religious system. Since 1660 there have been definite religious systems in both countries, but before that it was by no means so definite. I adhere to the proposition. We have been told to night that there was a perfect system of law and profession from the time of Elizabeth, but who heard of the Thirty-nine Articles during Queen Elizabeth's time? Nobody heard of them before 1634; and who brought them in? Archbishop Usher? The hard hand of Strafford brought them in, and Strafford, the Lord Deputy, sending for the prolocutor, gave them to him and ordered him to take them down to the Convocation, but charged him not to put the question "aye'' or "no" whether they should be accepted. The old Confession did not cease in 1634 to be law in the Church of Ireland. It had the same authority as the Thirty-nine Articles. But it is the want of definiteness in the system upon which my argument entirely turns. We have had a little illustration of this lately, because I have had the honour of receiving a Presbyterian deputation from the General Assembly of Ulster, and the demand put forward by them was that we should not stop at 1660, but go behind that date. "Upon what ground do you ask that?" I inquired. "Upon this ground," they replied. "that if you can go back so as to bring in the glebes of the Ulster settlement, we, the Presbyterians, shall be in a position to claim a large share in those endowments." [Opposition cheers.] Very well, let us see how far we are to go upon this point. We will take that admission from hon. Members opposite; it is of some value. Supposing, therefore, we go back behind the year 1660—and it may, perhaps, be news to some hon. Members that a great multitude of these glebes were purchased out of the proceeds of taxation levied upon the citizens of London—we shall have to set about the pleasant task of dividing them between the two great sections of the Protestants of Ireland—an operation which I need not say would be eminently calculated to secure the harmony and peace of Protestantism. Some hon. Members have asked us not to stop with the private endowments of 1660, but to go 1908 back to 1560. But, if we assented to that proposition as respects private endowments, they would obtain a most barren victory, because the amount of the private endowments of the Church in that country stands at precisely zero. The right hon. Gentleman is deluding himself—no, I will not use that word, it is rather too strong—but he is misled when he supposes that £30,000 or £40,000 per annum was secured by that good and learned man Archbishop Bramhall to the Irish Church out of his own or out of private means. Archbishop Bramhall did sell property he possessed in England for himself and his family, and did buy for himself and his family another property in Ireland, but that property never became a portion of the ecclesiastical property of the Irish Church. What Archbishop Bramhall did was this—he made use of the strong arm of the law and the public authority to compel the Irish landowners, right and left, to disgorge the appropriations they had made in times of trouble from the ancient property of the Church. Strong as the Irish landowners then were, Archbishop Bramhall was as strong as they, and Strafford was stronger still; and in those days it was a formidable thing for a man to be hauled up before the Privy Council to account for the manner in which he had become possessed of ecclesiastical property. It was thus, by making use of the authority and the law in a manner that modern judicature might qualify by the odious appellation of "extortion," and perhaps by some slight money payments, he was enabled to appropriate large endowments for the use of the Church. The present Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, like all his other Amendments relating to this subject, has been most astutely framed. He is not satisfied with going back to 1560—he looks, as I do, upon that 100 years as not worth fighting about as far as private endowments are concerned—he, taking a larger and more comprehensive view, disdains all limits, and says at once—"Let us go back to the Flood." Now, that is the effect of the well-advised Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman. I have said that between 1560 and 1660 the period was very barren; but if the centuries before these were well wrought and worked by good ecclesiastical antiquaries, they would yield a good deal. They would find that there 1909 were still in existence numerous private documents quite apart from the larger and more general controversy. But I must say a word or two upon the larger and more general controversy. I know that there are persons who think that the tithes themselves are to be regarded in the light of private endowments. That certainly was an opinion which in the 17th century was disputed between learned men, and therefore the whole tithes of Ireland might be brought in as private endowments, provided that the right hon. Gentleman, who has approached us to-night with the blandest accents—assuring us that his Amendment meant nothing more than an unimportant distinction of figures—could persuade us to change the date 1660 to an anterior date. Therefore, one effect of the Amendment being carried would be that most serious claims would be raised to the whole of the tithes of Ireland. But, independently of that, there are plenty of parochial glebes, and, probably, no inconsiderable number of episcopal and capitular estates, of which the original deeds of gift are in existence to this hour, which would, perhaps, if the Amendment were carried, all have to come out of our unfortunate surplus as coming under the head of private endowments, although I cannot regard that as a very powerful argument. But, putting that on one side, the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, and the hon. and learned Gentleman sitting by his side knows perfectly well that there are plenty of pre-Reformation documents in existence granting land to the Church, and that, therefore, in the event of the Amendment passing, they would be entitled to sweep into the net of this society, which is about to exist in a disestablished form, all the property to which they refer. The question, therefore, that we have to ask ourselves is, do these gifts of land satisfy or do they not satisfy, the true conditions of private endowments for the purposes of this Bill so as to justify the right hon. Gentleman in coming to us and saying—"I claim this property under your own principles—I merely ask you to extend them a little further, and to give us the pre-Reformation as well as the post-Reformation private endowments?" It is quite evident that neither in policy nor in justice can such a proposal be entertained by us. We cannot assent to the pre-Reformation endowments re- 1910 maining the property of the present Irish Church after it has passed into a state of disestablishment. Observe what we should do if we agreed to go back to the reign of James I. The Presbyterians would claim a share in the Crown grants of that reign. [Opposition cheers.] I understand from the cheers of hon. Members opposite that they are prepared to admit that claim; but they are not aware that if they go back to the time of Elizabeth and Henry VIII. they must be prepared for the claim of the Roman Catholics to the endowments granted before these reigns? Either we are or we are not to proceed upon the principles of religious equality, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman must by this time be beginning to see that his Amendment if agreed to would have a very serious effect indeed. How far that Amendment might go I am unable to say; but I am convinced that it would go very far indeed. I deny the justice and propriety of looking to a remote period at all for private endowments; but, if the Committee could be persuaded to look to such a period for them, it would be difficult to persuade the Roman Catholics that they were not entitled to them, and thus we shall revive the old controversy about St. Patrick, and give rise to an interminable theological controversy. I think that the sense of the House will feel that the only wise course for us to adopt is to avoid entering upon such a contest. I warn them not to listen to the Siren's voice, but to deal with the question in a spirit of common sense. The argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Roundell Palmer) behind me goes rather to bring the date of 1660 down rather than force it up to an earlier period. In fixing upon the date 1660 we were actuated by the feeling expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, when he said—if he did say so—that the Bill would be a gracious and a generous one, and we felt that in fixing upon that date we had reached the furthest limit to which we could go and yet preserve intact the principle of the Bill, Under these circumstances I trust that the Committee will adhere to the date 1660 in the clause, and that they will reject the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman.
§ SIR ROUNDELL PALMERI do not wish to address the Committee at any great length on this subject, but there 1911 are some things in connection with it to which I should like to refer, and more especially the latter part of the speech of my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government. My right hon. Friend has addressed the Committee, as he always does, in a speech of great ability and power, and, as I think he has done throughout these discussions, with the greatest candour and courtesy towards those from whom he differs. Now, I. cannot but concur with my right hon. Friend to this extent—that the Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) does seem open—whether intended to be so or not, probably it is not intended—to the charge that it goes back indefinitely, and beyond the period of the Reformation. Looking to the decisions at which the House has already arrived, I do not think it would be consistent to ask the House to treat as private endowments of the Protestant Church in Ireland anything going back beyond the Reformation. If 1560 were taken instead of the date stated in the Bill, that would not be open to the same objection, as it would only cover private endowments subsequent to the Reformation. It appears to me that the arguments in favour of the proposition of the Government have been entirely at variance with each other. My hon. and and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt) addressed an exceedingly able speech to the Committee; but it was a speech against the whole of the clause—against respecting any private endowments. Hon. Members may remember that, in some observations which I took the liberty of addressing to the House on a former occasion, I expressed myself as perfectly sensible of the force of the principle contended for my hon. and learned Friend. No doubt the State must continually regulate private endowments as well as public, if those private endowments are not for purposes strictly private. As my right hon. Friend the First Minister said we cannot dive into the minds of men who gave particular endowments to a Church which was at the time established, and say whether they were influenced more by the fact of that Church being established, or by sympathy with the religious tenets of the body in question. But the Government have settled that for us; and I think we may reasonably conclude that, in general, men do make these private 1912 endowments, not for political reasons, but from religious feeling and sympathy for the Church of which they are members. Yielding to that view, the Government thought it right to draw the line between public and private endowments. The sole question now is, whether, in point of time, the line is drawn on a consistent and intelligible principle. My right hon. Friend might have gone the whole length to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford has gone, and might have refused to recognize any distinction between private endowments and public endowments; but as he has recognized it, the sole question for us is, as to whether a sound, rational, and consistent principle has been acted upon in choosing the particular date fixed by the Bill. Now, having listened to what has been said tonight by my right hon. Friend, with that respect as well as admiration which one cannot help feeling at hearing a case put in the best conceivable manner, by the best possible advocate, I confess I fail to see how the arguments can hold water which he has addressed on this subject to the Committee. I should like to put this case to hon. Gentlemen of the Roman Catholic religion in this House. Suppose that in Italy something like what has been done here should hereafter be proposed—for this Bill may possibly form a precedent in Italy and other countries, as well as in England—those who may desire to deal with ecclesiastical property in Italy may say—"This is the way in which the thing was done in England, and we find that Roman Catholics in England approved of and co-operated in this way of doing it." But I should like to know what those Roman Catholic Gentlemen would say, if a statesman in Italy, dealing with private endowments, should propose to draw the line at a time when the highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church first pronounced a particular dogma to be an article of faith? This is a thing which occurred very recently, and it may occur again. Or suppose the Italian statesman were to draw the line at the Council of Trent, when we know that a new aspect and character were impressed on the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church. Will any Roman Catholic admit that the Roman Catholic Church was a different Church before from that which it was after the Council of Trent, or a different Church before the promulgation of the 1913 dogma of the Immaculate Conception from that which it has been since? No, the common-sense way of drawing the line is to draw it at a point when there was a great interruption of the communion—a great break in the continuity of the body—when the faith of the adherents of the religion was disturbed in such a way as may be said to have altered the basis of the Church. Though legally and organically the old Church of England and the new one were the same, there can be no doubt the Reformation introduced changes which led to a separation of those who had before been of one communion, and which in many respects made the Church of England, as it is, different from the Church as it existed before. But in a case where a Church, without any interruption of communion, in the exercise of its inherent powers, makes laws from time to time which cause no schism—to say that any action of that sort can interrupt the continuity and identity of that Church is to lay down a doctrine which never was held before, and which certainly would be capable of a very enlarged application. The adoption of the Lambeth Articles, which themselves, as the very name proves, came from England, did not, in any true or substantial sense, alter the ecclesiastical relations between Ireland and England. As has been remarked, there was Puritanism enough in those days here. Many persons say there was a new Church from the time of the Reformation. That depends very much on the different meanings which different minds attach to the same words; but this is the first time anyone has suggested that there was a new Church of England in 1660. There is no more ground for suggesting that there was a new Church in Ireland then, than there is for suggesting that there was a new one in England. Archbishop Whitgift endeavoured to impose the same Lambeth Articles on the clergy of England. But these theological discussions are, in truth quite beside the question. The real question before the Committee is, will you or will you not limit the grace of the reservation of private endowments by fixing an arbitrary date? The date of 1660 is, in reality, quite arbitrary. By its legal constitution, the Church in Ireland before that date was Protestant, was Episcopal, had the Liturgy of the Church of England, recognized the same kind of ecclesiastical supremacy in the Crown, as much before as afterwards; 1914 and the declaration of the doctrines and faith already entertained, by the formal adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, was made not in 1660, but in 1634. The Committee will, I am sure, deal with the subject as men of common sense. The argument of my right hon. Friend really conies to this—"If we acted on principles of law with strict consistency we should give you no private endowments at all; but we are disposed to act very generously towards you in giving you what you have no right to. We shall therefore go back to 1660 and stop there." I could understand your stopping at 1660, if there were any particular practical object to be gained by it; but my right hon. Friend says that the Protestant Episcopal Body would get no benefit from going back to 1560, because in the century between that and 1660 there were no private endowments. If that be so, nothing would be lost by your going back; but this would be gained—that you would be legislating upon a consistent principle. You say it is from generosity rather than anything else you are going to give those endowments, and that you are going to give them from the proper date—namely, the date at which you say the Church in Ireland assumed its present character by its union with the Church of England. But I take leave to say that the fact is otherwise; and that the argument by which you profess to establish that fact is one which no human ingenuity could make good. If a justification of it were possible it would have been placed before us by my right hon. Friend.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)thought that when they came to examine the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) he would show that it was utterly unmaintainable. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen must hear before they decided. The hon. and learned Member had suggested that the line for private endowments should be drawn at the date of the 2nd of Elizabeth. The reason why the hon. and learned Gentleman fixed that date was that, in that year, an Act of Uniformity was passed in Ireland in relation to the Liturgy of the Established Church. But what was the history of the Irish Church at that date. Any man who had read Irish history, even in the most cursory manner, must be convinced that at that time the Established 1915 Church was not adopted by Ireland, but was forced by conquest upon the people of that country, and no Protestant historian of any authority had ever written who had not pronounced that opinion. No one but a person whose wits had been overturned by prejudice would state, in the face of intelligent men, that the Irish people belonged to the Protestant Church in the reign of Elizabeth. ["Oh, oh!"] The question was one which must be dealt with by argument, and not by interruption. He would prove his argument from the statute itself; and, indeed, it would be just as well that those hon. Gentleman who interrupted him should know something about the Act. By the 15th section of the Act of Uniformity it was enacted that, inasmuch as ministers were frequently unacquainted with the Irish tongue, they might dispense with the English Liturgy and say the prayers in Latin, and the same Act made it lawful for the same minister—
To say and use the Matins, Evensong, celebration of the Lord's Supper, administration of each of the Sacraments, and all their common and open prayers in the Latin tongue.It was, therefore, absurd to say that any argument worthy of consideration could be adduced from this Act of Uniformity in favour of the Irish Church. Was not the provision that the service might be performed in Latin sufficient to annihilate the value of this statute as an Act of Uniformity? Lord Clare, an authority whom his right hon. and learned Friend opposite (Dr. Ball) would not despise, had in his speech on the Union in the Irish Parliament, for this very reason, declared the Act of Uniformity to be a solecism in the history of legislation. It made the Liturgy binding on the people of Ireland, but such an enactment was a farce. Now, the Convocations of 1615 and 1634 had been alluded to, and it had been contended that the Lambeth Articles in substance were never recognized in Ireland, and that the Thirty-nine Articles after 1634 were universally adopted. But, in Mant's History of the Irish Church, Usher is said to have stated, in a private letter, that, notwithstanding the Thirty-nine Articles were adopted, they were adopted with this qualification—that the Lambeth Articles were to remain in force, and that the Thirty-nine Articles were only to be adopted as far as they were consistent with the Lambeth Articles, which the 1916 earlier Convocation had agreed to. But there was a much stronger argument than any that could be founded upon the Convocations of 1615 and 1634. What was the state of Ireland when the so-called Glamorgan Treaty was entered into? They knew what the basis of that treaty was—That the Roman Catholics should hold and enjoy all the churches and glebes by them enjoyed in the kingdom"—namely, Ireland—"or by them possessed since the 23rd of October, 1641, and all the churches in the kingdom other than those actually enjoyed by His Majesty's Protestant subjects.The reason why 1660 was fixed on as the date in the measure was, that all before that was confusion, change, incoherence, and difference of opinion. It was to prevent the gross injustice that otherwise would follow that they had fixed that date; for they wished to prevent the new representative Church Body being able to capture private endowments never intended for the Established Church of Ireland, and thus perpetuate the very injustice which it was the aim and object of the Bill to prevent. He therefore hoped that the date of 1660 would be adopted.
§ DR. BALLsaid, that when he stated the extent of property which he believed would be affected by the Amendment, the Committee would see how very little reason there was in the arguments which had been addressed to them from the opposite side of the House. He was aware of only two classes of property which could be regarded as private endowments from the 2nd of Elizabeth down to 1660. One was the gifts of Archbishop Bramhall—gifts which were by no means the gifts of that Prelate personally—and the other the glebes given by the London companies in the time of James I. to those of the clergy in their parishes for whom no provision of the kind had been made. Now, of the gifts of Bramhall, part of the money came from that Prelate, Laud gave a large sum, and Charles I. also contributed out of his private resources. He at once acknowledged the truth of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that a greater engine than money was employed to recover the Church property—the power of Lord Strafford. There was at Lambeth at that moment a Return made with the object of showing what Strafford had done for the Church of Ireland, and what had been 1917 obtained by Archbishop Bramhall. But the Committee were not asked to give anything to the Church that had been obtained through the power of Strafford—solely to allow the Church to retain what was the produce of monies given by private persons out of their own resources. Then, with regard to the second gift, could any one doubt that the London companies were Protestant? Why, they were established in the country for the purpose of spreading a Protestant faith. In going back to Bramhall, he might state that Bramhall was the very Prelate employed by Stafford and Charles I. to bring the Irish Church back from their tendency to the Lambeth Articles and the doctrine of predestination. He was made Bishop of Derry in 1634, and attended the Convocation held in that year. It was through him that the communications were made, and by his influence that the Church then enacted a canon declaring its Articles to be the Articles of the Church of England. The property in question undoubtedly came from Anglican Episcopal sources. Even if it did not, he protested altogether against these miserable, minute, theological investigations; he protested, also, against it being laid down that the Church of England necessarily excluded Calvinism outside of her Articles. He asserted that the Articles were framed to include the doctrines of St. Augustine as well as the doctrines of those who opposed them. There was no single theological tenet which you could less take as a line of demarcation between different Churches than that of predestination. St. Augustine held it, St. Chrysostom denied it. Among the Catholics the Jansenists held it and the Jesuits denied it; in the English Church one Prelate had held it and another denied; in short it was a question on which, inside every Church, men differed, because it was a matter of abstract reasoning, not, except in the Scotch Church, incorporated into their creeds or formularies. Therefore, this description of investigation was wholly unworthy to occupy the time of the Committee, and wholly unworthy of pursuit by a great statesman; indeed, it was descending from the position of a statesman to that of a school divine, to weigh and balance these extreme niceties of opinion on one of the most difficult questions that ever occupied the human mind. The real question was, not the 1918 tenets but the existence of a Protestant Episcopal Church which received the private endowments prior to 1660. It could not be denied that the Presbyterians were excluded by the Act of Uniformity, because it expressly enacted Episcopacy; it also broke with Rome, and that and the concurrent Act enacted the supremacy of the Sovereign in Ireland, and excluded that of the Pope. There was, therefore, a tangible line of demarcation between the Episcopal Church in Ireland and the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches; and any man who gave money in the interim between the two periods of 2nd Elizabeth and 1660, knew he was giving it to a Church which was not Presbyterian, and which had shaken off allegiance to Rome. The hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt) had met the Amendment in a bold way, by asserting principles which would expunge the clause from the Bill. The clause admitted that private endowments ought to be saved; and none were so interested in resisting the doctrines of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford as the Roman Catholics of Ireland, for by those doctrines a large amount of property which had been given by testamentary disposition to the institutions of that Church, monastic and conventual, was imperilled, because, according to those doctrines, it made no difference whether endowments came from a public or a private source, and what gave the State dominion was that the endowments were for religious purposes. They were, therefore, to inquire, not as to the source, but as to the destination of endowments. This was an extremely dangerous doctrine; it would discourage gifts to the new body which, under the provisions of the present Bill, was to be formed for the Church; and therefore, in the name of the Church to which he belonged, and which in future must depend upon the generosity of the Protestants of Ireland, and also in the name of the Roman Catholic Church, which for its advancement and improvement must depend upon gifts and bequests of property to raise the priests above dependence on the fees of their flocks, he protested against a doctrine which would shake to their foundation the rights of men in the disposition of their property.
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, that, although the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Dr. Ball) had 1919 spoken only of private endowments, they had only to turn over a page of the Amendments to see what was in store. The right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire would propose to hand over to the Church Body all land held by the Church of Ireland, under Royal or public grants, from the second year of Elizabeth. So far from defending the Amendment, which, as it had been said, by leaving the date out of the clause, would carry its operation back to the Mood—the right hon. and learned Gentleman had gone back only to the date of Archbishop Bramhall: he ought to have taken an historical cycle, instead of a single generation. Having made it his business to read as much as, perhaps, any hon. Member had about Archbishop Bramhall, he was convinced that that able and energetic man conferred by far the greater part of the benefits he did upon the Irish Church—not at the cost of his own pocket, but at the cost of others—and that what had been said that night was within the mark with respect to the extraordinary advantages and powers which that Prelate possessed in the then state of the government of Ireland, through his connection with the Lord Deputy Strafford, and from the confused state of the times and the powerless condition of the Irish landlords who had acquired Church lands. One method of procedure which was adopted had not been alluded to; and that was borrowing large sums of money upon the security of the lands, and afterwards repudiating liability. The amount of endowment to be discovered in the gifts or rather the restorations of Bramhall was infinitesimal; and to discover and distinguish these endowments would require a vast and portentous amount of antiquarian research. The right hon. and learned Gentleman deprecated theological research; but he was ready to embark in any amount of antiquarian research. So far, he was in harmony with the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, who proposed that the Commissioners, in deciding upon private endowments, should receive and act upon "historical and other evidence;" but what that meant he was at a loss to understand, and the Government were not inclined to commit Parliament and the Commissioners to such a task. If this were a matter of absolute right and strict justice, re- 1920 search would be necessary; but these ancient private endowments had become incorporated with the public property of the Irish Church, and were to be dealt with upon considerations of expediency, while to go back beyond 1660 would involve only confusion and uncertainty. The Bill did substantial justice in drawing the line at this point, and he hoped the Committee would adopt it.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had repeated the taunt of the Prime Minister, that this Amendment would carry them back to the Mood. But if he had perused the page he would have found a subsequent Amendment which limited them to the second year of the reign of Elizabeth. [Mr. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: For public and Royal grants.] True; but his right hon. Friend never intended to go beyond the post-Reformation times. His present Amendment was to omit the year 1660, and he must be judged not by what he proposed to leave out, but by what he proposed to insert in its place. They said that the date 1660 was an improper date. How had it been defended? The Attorney General for Ireland said, that the Church of Ireland was forced on the Irish people in the second year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Well, suppose it was, and suppose that people gave out of their private resources endowments as a means of supporting that Church, was that a reason for depriving her of them now? These endowments were not forced from the people, but were given to the Church willingly. Then the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the Act of Uniformity, and said it allowed prayers to be read in Latin. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman talked of Matins and Evensong, he was apt to produce the impression that these were the prayers of the Church of Rome that were permitted to be said; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman was too good a scholar not to know, that the prayers here referred to were the prayers of the Liturgy of the Church of England which had been translated into the Latin tongue and were permitted to be used by the Irish priests. It was true that, in 1615, the Lambeth Articles were adopted by Convocation, but they were adopted irregularly, for they were never sanctioned by Parliament, and, in 1634, the Thirty-nine Articles were implicitly 1921 and fully adopted by the Convocation. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government said that Strafford did not allow them to say "Yes" or "No." But in 1634 the Church in Ireland was in the same condition as it was at present, and whatever bequests were given to the Protestant Church were given to it as severed from the Church of Rome, and as severed from Presbyterianism by Episcopacy. With respect to 1641, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had appealed to the great violence of the time when the Churches and glebes were taken possession of by the Roman Catholics, and said that there was an intention that some terms should be made with them. Those terms, however, were never made, and it was usurpation on their part to take possession of the glebes and churches. That usurpation arose in consequence of the great violence of the times; but that circumstance could not alter the condition of the Irish Church, which was the same now as it was then. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had laid down the principle that the bequests in order to come within the benefit of the Bill must be bequests to a definite religious persuasion, and such, it must be admitted, was the character of the Irish Church from the time of the Reformation. How, then, could it be shown that there was anything different in the state of the Irish Church in 1660? There was only the restoration of the King; and the Act of Uniformity then passed did not alter the creed of the Church, but only bound the Church down to a particular way of testing the creed, and to a certain mode of action in the conduct of Divine service, but it did not alter that service materially. The hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt) had adverted to him personally. All that he would say was that the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were not addressed to the question before the House, and when he was arguing as to the question of altering endowments at Oxford, there was never any intention of taking them away. The hon. and learned Gentleman argued against protecting private endowments at all. He (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) contended that a case had been made out for protecting private endowments, and that there was no difference between the century pre- 1922 ceding 1660 and the period which had elapsed since that time.
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEinquired whether it was proposed to limit the Amendment to post-Reformation grants?
§ Question, "That the words 'since the year' stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "sixteen" in order to insert the word "fifteen."—(Mr. Gathorne Hardy.)
MR. GLADSTONEI must detain the House for a few words, for I find that the issue has changed at the latest moment. We have been debating all night the entire removal of the limit. What we are now called on to do is to recognize the principle of private endowment as to the basis of our measure as far back as it can go—that is to say, for 300 years beneficial in its operation to Protestantism, and when we have gone back these 300 years, we then come to 400 more, during which the Irish Church was historically, undoubtedly, and undeniably, Papal. We then stop the principle of private endowment and refuse to apply it on behalf of Roman Catholics, and that in a measure which is fundamentally based on religious equality.
§ MR. DISRAELII do not think the issue to which the right hon. Gentleman refers has ever been introduced into this debate. The real issue before us is very simple; but we are dealing only with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the clause of the right hon. Gentleman which I propose to amend refers only to that; and the argument of the right hon. Gentleman in introducing it was solely confined to the Protestant Episcopal Church. He says—"I have fixed the year 1660, because that is the first time in which I find a legislative character and form given to the Irish Church," and the argument has been that, on the contrary, from the moment the Protestant Episcopal Church was introduced into Ireland by Elizabeth, there has been a continuous spirit there, and the 1923 same form, and the same character, and the same shape have been maintained. Therefore, the opinion of the Committee has not for a moment been diverted to any other subject, and we have hitherto been arguing substantially whether the post-Reformation endowments by private persons shall be respected in this spoliation of the Protestant Church.
§ Question put, "That the word 'sixteen' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 306; Noes 220: Majority 86.
1926| AYES. | |
| Acland, T. D. | Cavendish, Lord F. C. |
| Agar-Ellis, hon. L. G. F. | Cavendish, Lord G. |
| Allen, W. S. | Chadwick, D. |
| Amcotts, Col. W. C. | Chambers, T. |
| Amory, J. H. | Childers, rt. hon. H.C.E. |
| Anderson, G. | Cholmeley, Captain |
| Anstruther, Sir R. | Cholmeley, Sir M. |
| Antrobus, E. | Clay, J. |
| Armitstead, G. | Cogan, rt. hon. W. H. F. |
| Ayrton, A. S. | Colebrooke, Sir T. E. |
| Aytoun, R. S. | Coleridge, Sir J. D. |
| Backhouse, E. | Collier, Sir R. P. |
| Bagwell, J. | Colthurst, Sir G. C. |
| Baines, E. | Cowen, J. |
| Baker, R. B. W. | Cowper, hon. H. F. |
| Barry, A. H. S. | Craufurd, E. H. J. |
| Bass, M. A. | Crossley, Sir F. |
| Baxter, W. E. | Dalglish, R. |
| Bazley, T. | Dalrymple, D. |
| Beaumont, Capt. F. | D'Arcey, M. P. |
| Beaumont, S. A. | Davie, Sir H. R. F. |
| Beaumont, W. B. | Davies, R. |
| Bentall, E. H. | Davison, J. R. |
| Blake, J. A. | Delahunty, J. |
| Blennerhassett, Sir R. | De La Poer, E. |
| Bolckow, H. W. F. | Denison, E. |
| Bonham-Carter, J. | Denman, hon. G. |
| Bouverie, rt. hon. E.P. | Dent, J. D. |
| Bowring, E. A. | Devereux, R. J. |
| Brady, J. | Dickinson, S. S. |
| Brand, rt. hon. H. | Digby, K. T. |
| Brassey, H. A. | Dilke, C. W. |
| Brassey, T. | Dillwyn, L. L. |
| Brewer, Dr. | Dodds, J. |
| Bright, rt. hon. J. | Downing, M'C. |
| Bright, J. (Manchester) | Dowse, R. |
| Brinckman, Captain | Duff, M. E.G. |
| Brocklehurst, W. C. | Duff, R. W. |
| Brogden, A. | Dundas, F. |
| Brown, A. H. | Edwardes, hon. Col. W. |
| Bruce, Lord C. | Edwards, H. |
| Bruce, rt. hon. H. A. | Egerton, Capt. hon. F. |
| Buller, Sir E. M. | Ellice, E. |
| Bury, Viscount | Enfield, Viscount |
| Buxton, C. | Ennis, J. J. |
| Campbell, H. | Erskine, Vice-Ad. J. E. |
| Candlish, J. | Esmonde, Sir J. |
| Cardwell, rt. hon. E. | Ewing, H. E. C. |
| Carington, hn. Cap. W. | Eykyn, R. |
| Carnegie, hon. C. | Fagan, Captain |
| Carter, Mr. Ald. | Fawcett, H. |
| Cartwright, W. C. | FitzGerald, rt. hn. Lord O. A. |
| Castlerosse, Viscount | |
| Cave, T. | Fitzmaurice, Lord E. |
| FitzPatrick, rt. hn. J. W. | Lyttelton, hon. C. G. |
| Fletcher, I. | M'Arthur, W. |
| Fordyce, W. D. | M'Clean, J. R. |
| Forster, C. | MacEvoy, E. |
| Forster, rt. hon. W. E. | Macfie, R. A. |
| Fortescue, rt. hon. C.P. | Mackintosh, E. W. |
| Fortescue, hon. D. F. | Maguire, J. F. |
| Fothergill, R. | M'Lagan, P. |
| Fowler, W. | M'Laren, D. |
| Gavin, Major | Maitland, Sir A. C. R. G. |
| Gilpin, C. | Magniac, C. |
| Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E. | Marling, S. S. |
| Gladstone, W. H. | Martin, C. W. |
| Goldsmid, Sir F. H. | Martin, P. W. |
| Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. | Matthews, H. |
| Gourley, E. T | Miall, E. |
| Gower, hon. E. F. L. | Milbank, F. A. |
| Graham, W. | Milton, Viscount |
| Gray, Sir J. | Moncreiff, rt. hon. J. |
| Gregory, W. H. | Monk, C. J. |
| Greville, Captain | Monsell, rt. hon. W. |
| Greville-Nugent, Col. | Moore, G. H. |
| Grey, rt. hon. Sir G. | Morgan, G. O. |
| Grieve, J. J. | Morley, S. |
| Grosvenor, Earl | Morrison, W. |
| Grosvenor, Lord R. | Mundella, A. J. |
| Grove, T. F. | Muntz, P. H. |
| Hadfield, G. | Murphy, N. D. |
| Hamilton, E. W. T. | Nicol, J. D. |
| Hamilton, J. G. C. | North, F. |
| Harcourt, W. G. G. V. V. | O'Conor, D. M. |
| Harris, J. D. | O'Conor Don, The |
| Hartington Marquess of | O'Donoghue, The |
| Haviland-Burke, E. | Ogilvy, Sir J. |
| Hay, Lord J. | O'Loghlen, rt. hon. Sir C. M. |
| Henderson, J. | |
| Henley, Lord | Onslow, G. |
| Herbert, H. A. | O'Reilly, M. W. |
| Hibbert, J. T. | O'Reilly-Dease, M. |
| Hoare, Sir H. A. | Otway, A. J. |
| Hodgkinson, G. | Palmer, J. H. |
| Holms, J. | Parker, C. S. |
| Hoskyns, C. Wren- | Parry, L. Jones- |
| Howard, hon. C. W. G. | Pease, J. W. |
| Hughes, W. B. | Peel, A. W. |
| Hutt, rt. hon. Sir W. | Pelham, Lord |
| Hyde, Lord | Philips, R. N. |
| James, H. | Pim, J. |
| Jardine, R. | Platt, J. |
| Jessel, G. | Playfair, L. |
| Johnston, A. | Plimsoll, S. |
| Johnstone, Sir H. | Pochin, H. D. |
| King, hon. P. J. L. | Pollard-Urquhart, W. |
| Kingscote, Colonel | Portman, hon. W. H. B. |
| Kinnaird, hon. A. F. | Potter, E. |
| Kirk, W. | Potter, T. B. |
| Knatchbull - Hugessen, E. H. | Power, J. T. |
| Price, W. E. | |
| Lawrence, J. C. | Price, W. P. |
| Lawrence, W. | Ramsden, Sir J. W. |
| Lawson, Sir W. | Rathbone, W. |
| Layard, rt. hon. A. H. | Rebow, J. G. |
| Lea, T. | Reed, C. |
| Leatham, E. A. | Richard, H. |
| Lefevre, G. J. S. | Richards, E. M. |
| Lewis, J. D. | Robertson, D. |
| Lloyd, Sir T. D. | Roden, W. S. |
| Loch, G. | Rothschild, Brn. M. A. de |
| Locke, J. | Rothschild, N. M. de |
| Lowe, rt. hon. R. | Russell, A. |
| Lush, Dr. | Russell, H. |
| Lusk, A. | Rylands, P, |
| St. Aubyn, J. | Tollemache, hon. F. J. |
| St. Lawrence, Viscount | Tomline, G. |
| Salomons, Mr. Ald. | Torrens, R. R. |
| Samuda, J. D'A. | Torrens, W. T. M'C. |
| Samuelson, B. | Tracy, hon. C. R. D. H. |
| Samuelson, H. B. | Trevelyan, G. O. |
| Sartoris, E. J. | Verney, Sir H. |
| Scott, Sir W. | Vivian, A. P. |
| Seely, C. | Vivian, H. H. |
| Shaw, R. | Vivian, Cap. hn. J. C. W |
| Shaw, W. | Wedderburn, Sir D. |
| Sherlock, D. | Weguelin, T. M. |
| Sherriff, A. C. | Wells, W. |
| Simeon, Sir J. | West, H. W. |
| Simon, Mr. Serjeant | Westhead, J. P. B. |
| Smith, J. B. | Whalley, G. H. |
| Smith, T. E. | Whatman, J. |
| Stacpoole, W. | Whitbread, S. |
| Stanley, hon. W. O. | White, hon. Cap. C. |
| Stansfeld, rt. hon. J. | Whitwell, J. |
| Stapleton, J. | Whitworth, T. |
| Stepney, Colonel | Williams, W. |
| Stevenson, J. C. | Williamson, Sir H. |
| Stone, W. H. | Wingfield, Sir C. |
| Strutt, hon. H. | Winterbotham, H. S. P. |
| Sullivan, rt. hon. E. | Young, A. W. |
| Sykes, Col. W. H. | Young, G. |
| Synan, E. J. | TELLERS. |
| Talbot, C. R. M. | Glyn, G. G. |
| Taylor, P. A. | Adam, W. P |
| NOES. | |
| Adderley, rt. hon. C. B. | Clowes, S. W |
| Akroyd, E. | Cole, Col. hon. H. A. |
| Allen, Major | Collins, T. |
| Amphlett, R. P. | Conolly, T. |
| Annesley, hon. Col. H. | Corrance, F. S. |
| Archdall, Capt. M. | Courtenay, Viscount |
| Arkwright, Aug. P. | Crichton, Viscount |
| Arkwright, R. | Croft, Sir H. G. D. |
| Bagge, Sir W. | Cross, R. A. |
| Bailey, Sir J. R. | Cubitt, G. |
| Ball, J. T. | Curzon, Viscount |
| Baring, T. | Dalrymple, C. |
| Barnett, H. | Damer, Capt. Dawson- |
| Barttelot, Colonel | Dawson, R. P. |
| Bateson, Sir T. | De Grey, hon. T. |
| Bathurst, A. A. | Denison, C. B. |
| Beach, Sir M. H. | Dick, F. |
| Beach, W. W. B. | Dimsdale, R. |
| Bective, Earl of | Disraeli, rt. hon. B. |
| Biddulph, M. | Du Pre, C. G. |
| Bingham, Lord | Dyott, Col. R. |
| Booth, Sir R. G. | Eaton, H. W. |
| Bourke, hon. R. | Egerton, hon. A. F. |
| Bright, R. | Egerton, E. C. |
| Brise, Col. R. | Egerton, Sir P. G |
| Broadley, W. H. H. | Egerton, hon. W |
| Brodrick, hon. W. | Elliot, G. |
| Bruce, Sir H. H. | Elphinstone, Sir J. D. H. |
| Bruen, H. | Feilden, H. M. |
| Buckley, Sir E. | Fellowes, E. |
| Butler-Johnstone, H. A. | Fielden, J. |
| Cameron, D. | Figgins, J. |
| Cartwright, F. | Finch, G. H. |
| Cave, rt. hon. S. | Floyer, J. |
| Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G. | Forde, Colonel |
| Chaplin, H. | Forester, rt. hon. Gen. |
| Charley, W. T. | Fowler, R. N. |
| Child, Sir S. | Galway, Viscount |
| Clifton, Sir R. J. | Garlies, Lord |
| Clive, Col. E. | Gilpin, Col. |
| Clive, Col. hon. G. W. | Goldney, G. |
| Gooch, Sir D. | Morgan, hon Major |
| Gore, J. R. O. | Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R. |
| Gore, W. R. O. | Neville-Grenville, R. |
| Grant, Colonel hon. J. | Newdegate, C. N. |
| Graves, S. R. | Newport, Viscount |
| Gray, Lieut.-colonel | Nicholson, W. |
| Greaves, E. | North, Colonel |
| Greene, E. | Northcote, rt. hon. Sir S. H. |
| Gregory, G. B. | |
| Guest, A. E. | O'Neill, hon. E. |
| Gurney, rt. hon. R. | Paget, R. H. |
| Hambro, C. | Pakington, rt. hon. Sir J. |
| Hamilton, Lord C. | |
| Hamilton, Lord G. | Palk, Sir L. |
| Hamilton, I. T. | Palmer, Sir R. |
| Hamilton, Marquess of | Parker, Major W. |
| Hardy, rt. hon. G. | Peek, H. W. |
| Hardy, J. | Peel, A. |
| Hardy, J. S. | Peel, rt. hon. Sir R. |
| Hay, Sir J. C. D. | Pemberton, E. L. |
| Headlam, rt. hon. T. E. | Percy, Earl |
| Henley, rt. hon. J. W. | Phipps, C. P. |
| Henniker - Major, hon. J. M. | Raikes, H. C. |
| Ridley, M. W. | |
| Henry, J. S. | Round, J. |
| Herbert, rt. hon. Gen. P. | Sandon, Viscount |
| Hermon, E. | Saunderson, E. |
| Hervey, Lord A. H. C. | Sclater-Booth, G. |
| Hesketh, Sir T. G. | Scourfield, J. H. |
| Heygate, Sir F. W. | Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J. |
| Hick, J. | |
| Hildyard, T. B. T. | Shirley, S. E. |
| Hill, A. S. | Sidebottom, J. |
| Hoare, P. M. | Simonds, W. B. |
| Holford, R. S. | Smith, A. |
| Holmesdale, Viscount | Smith, F. C. |
| Holt, J. M. | Smith, R. |
| Hope, A. J. B. B | Smith, S. G. |
| Hornby, E. K. | Smith, W. H. |
| Howes, E. | Stanley, Hon. F. |
| Hunt, rt. hon. G. W. | Stanley, Lord |
| Hutton, J. | Starkie, J. P. C. |
| Ingram, H. F. M. | Stopford, S. G. |
| Jenkinson, Sir G. S. | Stronge, Sir J. M. |
| Johnston, W. | Sturt, H. G. |
| Jones, J. | Sturt, Lt. Col. N. |
| Kavanagh, A. Mac M. | Sykes, C. |
| Kekewich, S. T. | Talbot, J. G. |
| Keown, W. | Taylor, rt. hon. Col. |
| Knight, F. W. | Tollemache, J. |
| Knox, Hon. Col. S. | Trevor, Lord A. E. H. |
| Laird, J. | Turner, C. |
| Langton, W. H. P. G. | Turnor, E. |
| Lefroy, A. | Vance, J. |
| Legh, W. J. | Verner, E. W. |
| Lennox, Lord G. G. | Verner, W. |
| Lennox, Lord H. G. | Walpole, hon. F. |
| Liddell, hon. H. G. | Walpole, rt. hon. S. H. |
| Lindsay, Hon. Col. C. | Walsh, hon. A. |
| Lindsay, Col. R. L. | Waterhouse, S. |
| Lopes, H. C. | Welby, W. E. |
| Lowther, J. | Wethered, T. O. |
| Lowther, W. | Wheelhouse, W. S. J. |
| Malcolm, J. W. | Whitmore, H. |
| Manners, Lord G. J. | Williams, C. H. |
| Manners, rt. hn. Lord J. | Williams, F. M. |
| March, Earl of | Winn, R. |
| Mellor, T. W. | Wise, H. C. |
| Milles, hon. G. W. | Wright, Colonel |
| Mills, C. H. | Wynn, Sir W. W. |
| Montagu, rt. hon. Lord R. | TELLERS. |
| Noel, G. J. | |
| Morgan, C. O. | Dyke, W. H. |
§ MR. DISRAELIthen moved the following Amendment:—
Line 28 after "one" leave out "but," and insert, "and in determining whether any property so claimed is a private endowment it shall he lawful for the Commissioners to receive and act upon such historical and other evidences as may seem to them to be satisfactory, although the same may not he evidence of a legal character, and also to allow the reasonable costs, charges, and expenses of such application, and of tracing the history of such endowments.
MR. GLADSTONEremarked that the Amendment divided itself into two parts—the first relating to the character of of the evidence upon which the Commissioners were to act, and the second to the question of costs. With respect to the first part he would simply remark that, although he hoped the Commissioners would embrace in their number a strong infusion of real power of investigation, and possess a sufficient knowledge of the habits and rules by which their inquiries ought to be directed, they yet would not be bound by the technical rules of evidence in any way. The reasonable object of the right hon. Gentleman, so far as that point was concerned, might, therefore, be regarded as being already attained. As to the allowance of costs, he did not think the present clause was the most convenient part of the Bill to specify anything on that subject; but he entirely concurred with the right hon. Gentleman in the view which he took in the matter, and words to carry that view into effect would be introduced into the Bill.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYreplied that, under those circumstances, it was not necessary to press the Amendment,
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. DISRAELI moved, in line 33, to leave out "within twenty-five years before the passing of this Act," and insert "since the year one thousand eight hundred."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATE, in rising to move an Amendment, of which he had given notice, on line 42, observed that, since its purport had been so eloquently explained by the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), it would be unnecessary for him to enter at any length into the history of the Plantation of Ulster. A large proportion of those who settled in 1928 Ulster professed the Presbyterian form of religion, and were induced to go over to Ireland in consequence of the promises of the Government to give assistance to their Church. He confessed he sympathized very much with these Presbyterians, and thought an endowment for them ought to be preserved. He felt that a great deal was to be said in favour of those Presbyterians. The total amount in dispute was not more than £30,000 or £40,000 per annum, and this sum would provide for the parochial system in that province and the services of religion in parishes where there were respectable, not to say numerous, congregations; for it was an undoubted fact that the Church population in Ulster, if equally divided, amounted to an average of 580 individuals in each parish. Was it right, he would ask, to put a stop to the parochial system when the congregation was so numerous? The hon. and learned Member for the city of Oxford (Mr. Harcourt), had stated that every trust must be subject to revision at the end of a certain number of years; but the hon. Gentleman had omitted to state that revisions of this kind invariably occurred on the supposition that the original trust had either expired or entirely changed in its character. With regard to Ulster, however, nothing of the kind had occurred. There the parochial system was still required, and the congregations were at the present moment in existence. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government admitted that documents might be found by which endowments to localities could be traced. At this late hour he would not go fully into the argument, but would content himself by asking the right hon. Gentleman whether it was wise to refuse to listen to the united cry of the most loyal and populous part of Ireland. Why should they be mixed up in the treatment of the treasonable part of Ireland?
§
Amendment proposed, in page 13, line 42, at the end of the Clause, to add the words—
When any real property so becoming vested in the Commissioners consists of glebe lands, or other hereditaments which have been appropriated, or granted, by or in pursuance of any Statute, or Royal Grant, or Letters Patent, since the second year of Queen Elizabeth, for the endowment of any rectory, vicarage, or other parochial benefice, the Commissioners shall, on the application of the said representative body, made
1929
within six months after the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, by order Test such property in such representative body, subject to any life interest subsisting therein."—(Sir Frederick Heygate.)
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, it must be evident to the Committee that it would be impossible for the Government, in common consistency, to agree to the Amendment, because the grants referred to by the hon. Baronet were in no sense private grants, but in the fullest sense of the words grants of a public character. Indeed, the very words used in the Amendment stamped them with that character. Not only were these Royal grants of the Crown, but it was an interesting historical fact, which was not without some bearing on the present discussion, that in the main these were not grants of new lands for the first time devoted to the purposes of the Reformed Church, but were almost solely restoration of the old Church lands. [Mr. CONOLLY: Not at all.] It was, he believed, a matter capable of historical proof that these lands had in the main belonged to the old Church, and had either been directly handed over by Elizabeth to the Reformed Church, or had been restored to it, after having passed for a brief period into the hands of lay occupiers, who had obtained them by means which it was not necessary for him to specify on the present occasion. The broad facts were that these were Royal grants made by the Crown to the National State Church of Ireland; and now that that Church was about to cease to exist it would be extremely inconsistent if those public grants were treated as though they were of a private nature. For these reasons he hoped the Committee would not agree to the Amendment.
§ MR. CONOLLYhoped the right hon. Gentleman would not deny that his hon. Friend (Sir Frederick Heygate) was Member for the county of Londonderry, because his audacious—he would not say insolent—denial—[" Order."]—
THE CHAIRMANintimated that the hon. Gentleman was approaching to the use of expressions which were not Parliamentary.
§ MR. CONOLLYsaid he would withdraw the expression, which had slipped from him by mistake, for no one knew his right hon. Friend's amenity more than he did. But the right hon. Gen- 1930 tleman's denial of the hon. Baronet's request was not so well founded as he seemed to imagine. The question at issue was not whether any Royal grants should be taken into consideration; but that the grants made by the London companies to the Irish Church should be necessarily considered before that Church was swept from the face of the earth by a tyrannical majority. That question had two aspects—one as it affected the Protestants and the other as it affected the Catholics. The right of the Protestant landlords of Ireland to their estates depended upon the Act of Settlement. But what was the Catholic view of the matter? Mr. O'Connell had often alluded in that House to the Act of Settlement, and always in terms of the greatest reprobation. Mr. O'Connell had held out to his followers the repeal of the Union and the resumption of the forfeited estates; and the ignis fatuus presented by that great agitator to Ms countrymen was now being offered to them by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. If by this Bill they tore up the first page of the Act of Settlement the estates of the Irish landlords would come to be dealt with as the next stage of the transaction. The most serious interests hung upon the clause they were discussing. They were not only disestablishing and disendowing the Church, but striking a heavy blow at the loyal relations between Ulster and this country, and destroying the peace and harmony of Ireland. Those great questions were hardly to be settled by a majority rushing in after dinner to vote on a matter which they had not carefully considered; and it would be a serious thing if, about the 12th of July next, they heard of something in the North of Ireland which would show that the Plantation of Ulster was not ignored there, as a majority of that House seemed to suppose.
§ LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he was sorry that that subject had been mooted at so late an hour, and he would reserve to himself the full right of entering into it on another occasion. He would now, however, just notice the unsatisfactory manner in which the Prime Minister had met the speech of the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), the ability of which the right hon. Gentleman had fully acknowledged. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that 1931 they could not refuse to be guided by the dictates of justice; but then he argued that if they followed out that principle the Presbyterians would get all the advantage, and not the Established Church. That was not a fair way of treating the matter. If the Presbyterians were really entitled in justice to those endowments, let them have them; but it was not consistent for the right hon. Gentleman to fly off from the question, and to tell the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire that, even admitting his argument based on justice to be sound, the Established Church would not be the body to profit most by their adhering to the principle of justice.
§ Question put, "That those words be there added."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 180; Noes 283: Majority 103.
MR. GLADSTONEOn the next clause no notice of Amendment has been given, and there is convenience in now taking it, for we shall then have arrived at the close of one of the divisions of the Bill.
§ MR. VANCE moved that the Chairman report Progress.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he should not resist that Motion; but with regard to proceeding with the Bill to-morrow, he wished to say that the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) and the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory), who had Motions on the Paper, had promised to give way, with a view to promoting the progress of the Bill, and he hoped that other Gentlemen might be disposed to follow their example. But the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) had given notice that he would raise a discussion to-morrow on the recent occurrences in Ireland. He could not say anything at present beyond this, that it was very possible it might be his duty to appeal to the hon. Member on public grounds not to proceed so early with that discussion. Of course, what the hon. Member had said had reference a good deal to the language attributed to the Mayor of Cork, which language, if really used, could not be too severely condemned. He (Mr. Gladstone) had received a telegram in the course of the evening, which he thought the House would be glad to hear. It was from Mr. Thomas Lyons, who, he was in- 1932 formed, was an eminent citizen of Cork, and who said that he intended to ask the Mayor of Cork in public meeting if he adopted the words relative to the assassin O'Farrell attributed to him in the local papers; and if so, to call upon him to resign his office. It was obvious that the House would wish to be in complete possession of the facts before proceeding with the discussion.
§ MR. W. H. GREGORYhoped that if he postponed his Motion, he should have an early opportunity afforded him by the Government of bringing it on.
COLONEL GILPINsaid, Mr. Lyons might be a very important person; but, inasmuch as the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them the Lord Chancellor himself could not remove the Mayor of Cork if he declined to resign, he did not see why Mr. Lyon's intention of asking the Mayor a question should influence the proceedings of this House.
MR. GLADSTONEtrusted the Committee would not misapprehend him. He referred to the telegram to establish the fact that the Mayor of Cork was to be publicly challenged to deny the words. Whether he would deny the words or not was an important matter for them to consider.
§ VISCOUNT SANDONsaid, his hon. Colleague (Mr. Graves) was the last person to give a Notice of so much importance if he did not intend to bring it before the House. He did not think he was simply actuated by the news recently received. His Colleague was not actuated by anything like a party motive, but by a sense of the highest duty.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSpointed out that the Notice of Motion had been given, not in consequence of what had appeared in the papers respecting the Mayor of Cork, but from the unsatisfactory answer given by the Chief Secretary for Ireland to his Question respecting the condition of Westmeath and Tipperary.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House resumed.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.