HC Deb 06 May 1869 vol 196 cc265-350

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause; 39 (Repeal of Maynooth Acts. Compensation on the cessation of certain annual sums).

Amendment again proposed, in page 19, line 16, to leave out from the words "in respect of," to the word "College," in line 19, inclusive."—(Sir George Jenkinson.)

COLONEL BARTTELOT

expressed his opinion that the Amendment proposed by the hon. Baronet was one of the greatest importance that could be brought before the Committee. Another Amendment on the same subject was to be brought forward by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun), but that had nothing to do with the Amendment now before the House. The present Amendment was the one on which Members went to the hustings, and upon which they were returned to that House; for he believed that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government pledged himself last year that no portion of the funds of the Church should be applied to Maynooth. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head; but he cared not for that, because the question was not what the right hon. Gentleman himself intended, but what the country understood from his declarations. The country distinctly understood that not one fractional part of the revenues of the Church should be devoted to the College of Maynooth. ["No, no!"] Could he do so without a, breach of Order he would appeal to the hon. Member the Chairman of Committees and ask him whether it was not time that in Sussex, the county to which they both belonged, the understanding to which he had just referred was not entered into on the various hustings? The question asked by honest men at the time of the election was—"Is the grant to Maynooth to cease, or is it to be carried on out of the funds of the Established Church?" and the answer was—"It is to cease altogether." The Amendment of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy did not deal with that point; but the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wiltshire did; and, so far as he (Colonel Barttelot) was concerned, not one farthing of these funds should be devoted to the College of Maynooth. The giving of a lump sum to the College would simply be a perpetuation of the Maynooth Grant, out of the funds of the Established Church. That was against all his principles and convictions. If the money was taken out of the Consolidated Fund, certainly it would be what the people of England had not expected; but he was sure they would rather consent to that than that one farthing of Church property should be devoted to the College of Maynooth. Hon. Members who professed the Roman Catholic faith knew that he would not say one word disrespectful to them; but if only twenty Members went into the Lobby in support of the Amendment he would be one of them. A statement was made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) the other day, that when Ms late Colleague, Mr. Spooner, brought forward Ms Motion against Maynooth, he was invariably treated with respect. A great many Members always had voted against the Maynooth Grant. An hon. Gentleman on the opposite side a few nights ago spoke of the "levelling-up" principle; but three-fourths of those who sat on that (the Opposition) side of the House never did and never would endure any such "levelling-up" principle. They were decidedly opposed to it, and the right hon. Gentleman and his friends had raised that point most unfairly on the hustings; because they knew that this House would have rejected any such proposition, by a very large majority on both sides of the House. Hon. Gentlemen had therefore no right to bring in that levelling-up principle, or to say that they (the Opposition) were to be bound by the expression of any one man. If Members were to be bound by any expression that might fall from a Leader of their party, he asked hon. Gentlemen opposite if they would consent to be bound by the expressions of the President of the Board of Trade on the land question? His opinion was that they would not be so guided, but would listen to the safer counsels of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. His sincere conviction was that if they consented that any portion of the Church funds should be devoted to the support of Maynooth they would be doing that which was most certainly wrong.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

said, that as on Tuesday the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government expressed a hope that the one debate might be made to serve for both his Amendment and that of the hon. Baronet the Member for North Wiltshire, he would in the discussion of the Amendment now before the Committee say what he had to say in support of his own Amendment which was yet to come. But as the object of the hon. Baronet was to prevent any of the funds of the Irish Church from being applied to compensating the officials and students of Maynooth, while his Amendment was not intended to have that effect, but to provide that the compensation coming from those funds should be different in amount, and in the manner of application from the compensation provided by the clause, he should think it necessary to call for a division on his Amendment. Having made that statement, he would proceed to speak in favour of the Motion which he had placed upon the Paper.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has stated that his own Motion is different from that of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, and that he intends to take a division upon it. He then proceeds to state that he will offer observations upon his own Amendment. The question, however, now before the Committee is the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

said, he was under the impression that he was acting in accordance with a suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. He should not have ventured to adopt that course on his own authority. After the decision of the Chairman, however, he should reserve his observations for the present.

SIR HERVEY BRUCE

said, that having never voted on the subject of Maynooth he wished to explain the vote which he was about to give, and without venturing to express any opinion as to the funds voted to Maynooth—there being much to be said on account of the grant being guaranteed by Act of Parliament—he could not consent to the endowment being given from the funds of the Irish Established Church. With regard to the Presbyterian Church, he had always voted for the small sum given to her ministers when opposed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and he had advocated an increase; but, that if the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy had taken the opinion of the Committee, he would equally have objected to the Consolidated Fund being relieved at the expense of the funds of the Irish Church. He would remind the hon. Member for Roscommon (The O' Conor Don), who had urged the other night that Maynooth and the University of Dublin should stand on the same footing, that there was this material difference between them, that at the latter the privileges of education were open to all, while at the former they were confined to members of the Roman Catholic religion. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite appeared to think that they were getting a very small portion of the spoil; but they should bear in mind that this was not a fund that had been suddenly discovered by the nation. It was money that belonged to the Established Church by law and by inheritance. The argument that other denominations did not get an equal share with the Established Church was of no validity, because they were not entitled to any of it. The money belonged to the Church, and if Parliament took it away from its legitimate owners they had no right to give it to a religion according to whose views the Established Church had no right whatever to any possessions in the land. He hoped the Committee would well consider the great gravity of the question. With regard to the source from which the compensation was to be made to Maynooth, they were, of course, bound to accept the denial of the Prime Minister as to his pledge not to endow Maynooth out of the funds of the Established Church; but the country certainly laboured under the impression alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot). He thought, therefore, the country ought to have an opportunity of again expressing its opinion before Parliament finally acceded to the proposals of the Government.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, if the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun) has fallen into an error, I fear I am the immediate cause, and it was his courtesy, in acting on a suggestion of mine, which has caused him to be amenable to your correction. I cannot, however, take much blame to myself for falling into that error, because a construction has been put upon the Motion of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson, which I did not gather from his speech, and which to me, at all events, is somewhat astonishing. Now, the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex says that there was a special pledge given not to pay any compensation to Maynooth out of the funds of the Irish Church—

COLONEL BARTTELOT

I did not say that. What I said was, that the country so understood it, whatever may have been the words of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. GLADSTONE

Well, that the country understood such a pledge was made. What I affirm is this—and I am perfectly certain that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not contradict me—that never at any period during the last Session of Parliament, or during the elections, was the slightest distinction drawn either by myself, or by any of my Friends who sit near me, in respect to the source from which compensation was to be made, or in respect to the principle upon which it was to be founded, between the case of Maynooth and of the Presbyterians. Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman contradict me on that point?

COLONEL BARTTELOT

I do not wish to contradict the right hon. Gentleman. What I wished to explain was simply this, that what the country understood was, that none of these funds were to be applied to the maintenance of the College of Maynooth.

MR. GLADSTONE

Then what I return to is this—that, on every occasion, in every speech delivered by any persons connected with the Motion of last year, or with this Bill, the compensation to the Presbyterians and the compensation to Maynooth were placed in the same category; and I cannot believe that the country is so devoid of intellect and common-sense perception as the hon. and gallant Gentleman implies it to be, when he says that they never understood anything about the Presbyterians, but that they did understand that no compensation was to be made to Maynooth out of the Church Fund.

COLONEL BARTTELOT

I rise to Order, Sir. I did not mention the Pres- byterians at all. We have passed that branch of the subject.

MR. GLADSTONE

I know the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not mention the Presbyterians, but I will mention the Presbyterians. What is the predicament in which we stand, and what is the sacredness of this Church Fund? You have already relieved the Consolidated Fund to the extent of between £700.000 and £800,000, every shilling of which is to be paid to the Presbyterians. You have voted that without a word, and you have voted it out of the Church Fund. In opposition to that proposal we have not had a division, a speech, or even an objection, except from one or two Gentlemen who thought we did not give enough—that is to say that we did not cut enough off the Church Fund. Well, then, on what principle are we to stand? Are we come to this point, that even now, in the last act of the unhappy history of the Irish Church, we cannot proceed upon principles of equality and justice, but must make a search in the country to see if we can find the embers of a slumbering religious prejudice? After we have sat silent, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman sat silent, while we were voting money from the Church Fund for the Presbyterians, he now rises and proposes as a patriotic and constitutional principle—urging in support of it a pledge which has not a shadow of existence—that Maynooth is to be excluded from this mode of compensation. What I wish particularly to direct the attention of the Committee to is that, whatever argument the case is susceptible of, that argument is not between Maynooth and the Church Fund, but that it is one between the Consolidated Fund and the Church Fund. That certainly is a very fair argument, but it embraces the Presbyterians just as much as it docs Maynooth, and I never will believe till I see it—and see it I am certain I shall not— that this Committee, after having silently voted £750,000 out of the Church Fund, for compensating the Presbyterians, will turn round, under circumstances which are analogous and substantially identical, and endeavour to exclude Maynooth from the same benefits, trusting that, when we come to propose a grant to Maynooth afterwards as an isolated grant out of the taxes, it would be possible to raise a popular prejudice against it. As between the Church Fund and the Consolidated Fund the question is a fair one to raise—whether the Government will do rightly in proposing that these compensations in respect to the Presbyterians and Maynooth should be laid upon the Consolidated Fund and not upon the Church Fund. But I would first say a word to those who think it unjust to Ireland to place these compensations upon the Church Fund, because the payments in respect to which they are made are now charged upon the Consolidated Fund. If an account be taken between the Consolidated Fund and Ireland under the Bill, as it has been presented by the Government, and as it has been thus far passed by the Committee, I will venture to say that Ireland is a debtor and not a creditor. If we are going—and it is true that we do so —to relieve the Consolidated Fund of something like £66,000, which might represent a capital of £1,000,000 or £1,500,000—you may take it at a larger sum if you like—I say that not even that is as much as the Consolidated Fund gives to Ireland in the arrangements to be adopted. The public credit of the Consolidated Fund is to be used on behalf of the Church property to a considerable extent. The tithe has been sold at sixteen or seventeen years' purchase; for that we are to realize twenty-two and a-half years, and that is a difference approaching £2,000,000. The Church estates will be sold in the same manner under a system of advances, which only the use of the credit of this country will enable us to make, and I believe another £1,000,000 or £1,300,000 will be realized for the Church Fund of Ireland by the use of that, machinery. Therefore, as between the Consolidated Fund and Ireland, a great deal more is distinctly given to Ireland by the use of the general credit of the country, under the machinery of the provisions of this Bill, than the amount of relief which, I admit, the Consolidated Fund will receive from the operation of the Bill. I do not look upon this as a question between England and Ireland, and if the representatives of Ireland at any time think fit to appeal for relief out of the Consolidated Fund in respect of the charge, I have no doubt that, provided the occasion was one when Ireland had a just and equitable claim, the House would be very willing and ready to lend an ear to it. What we have to do is to look to the right, and the reason of the case, as far as we can perceive them; and, as far as we can perceive them, they are these—The grant to the Presbyterians and the grant in respect of Maynooth are really Irish charges; and it is much more easy, in my opinion, to show that the imposition of those charges has been a great hardship to the people of Great Britain than it is easy to show that to relieve the people of Great Britain in respect of them is unjust to Ireland. They have been Irish charges, imposed for Irish purposes—imposed, I venture to say, again, for the purpose of maintaining and shoring up this decrepit fabric, which never was able to stand upon its own feet. The people of England have been sconced in one form and another in order to maintain it, and it is therefore a fair and a just claim that charges never incurred for their benefit, but for the benefit of the Irish Establishment—["No, no!"]—should be paid out of the funds of the Irish Church Establishment. On the first night of the discussion, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) I stated that it was a matter which the Government never regarded as a foundation principle of this great measure, but it was one on which they had a strong and clear conviction; and I must say I believe that that conviction is sustained, as far as I can learn, by the general sense and feeling of the country. There is really a very valid connection between the two questions—whence compensation is to come, and whether compensation shall be given, and the objection I have taken to the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) is not a mere objection to the form. If he wanted to raise the question whether these compensations were justly put upon the Church funds he should have raised it before. He should have raised it at the moment when we proposed to place the charge for the annuity in lieu of the Regium Donum upon the Church Fund. Perhaps we shall hear an appeal to religious principles in support of this Motion, and shall be told we ought not to support the placing upon the Church Fund of the charge for compensating those who differ from us as the Roman Catholics do. Well, you have not been at all squeamish up to the present moment; you have not only compensated the Presbyterians of the Synod of Ulster, who agree with you in what are commonly considered the cardinal Articles of the Christian faith; but you have quietly and calmly, and without a word of objection, compensated out of the Church Fund those who do not agree with you in such matters—those who are called non-Subscribing or Arian Presbyterians and Unitarian Presbyterians, the nature of whose differences with you are sufficiently indicated by that very brief recital. God forbid that I should endeavour to draw attention to their nature; with that we have nothing to do; but it is not without some emotion I see an endeavour made to take advantage of religious prejudice to raise this question, not in its right place, as you would have done if your object was to save the Consolidated Fund, and to maintain what you call consistency with the professions of last year. At the time when the Presbyterian compensations are secured, and you are afraid of difficulty with your Presbyterian constituents, you now turn round upon the Roman Catholics; you think you have Government in a corner, and that you will, first of all, be able to keep them from participating in the general grant of compensation, on the ground of the impropriety of charging theirs on the Church Fund, and that you will then necessitate the proposal of a grant for them, and for them alone, out of the Consolidated Fund. The proposal of the Government is in perfect consistency with the literal meaning and the spirit of all their declarations upon this subject. At all times we have declared that the same equitable and liberal spirit of dealing which was to be applied to the Established Church—and which we have applied to it—must be applied to the Roman Catholic and to the Presbyterian bodies in Ireland; that in that spirit all the arrangements must be adjusted which were connected with bringing to a close the present relations between the State and the Church in Ireland as respects the pecuniary support of religion, and: that when that was done, what remained of the Church property of Ireland should not be applied to the maintenance of any Church, or of any clergy, or the teaching of religion in any form. These were the pledges we gave to the country, these pledges we have satisfied by bringing this Bill before the Committee, and we ask the Committee to assist us in redeeming them.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

agreed with all that had been said by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot). He paid close attention to what was said by Members of the present Government, and their friends and myrmidons in different parts of the country; and he declared that had it not been that it was believed, especially by the Scotch Members, from the whole tenour of these speeches, that not a single farthing was going to Popish purposes, (he Government would never have obtained the majority they had obtained. If the designs of the Government had been known, the Government would never have existed. In 1829 Lord Palmerston said, that none but a profligate Government could bring forward such a measure as this. The Roman Catholics in that year entered into a most solemn engagement to abstain at all times from any interference with the Protestant Church in Ireland. Therefore the representatives of the Roman Catholic party who voted for this Bill were? covenant breakers. His Friends on the Liberal side of the House, who were Members for Scotland, in supporting this Bill acted contrary to every tradition of their forefathers. He was a Presbyterian, and he considered that whatever grant was made from a Protestant fund of that description to a Protestant sect, whether a Presbyterian or not, was a legitimate conveyance of the money. But he objected to an appropriation of the money to purposes which, in his belief, would amount to gross spoliation and robbery, and the endowment of Popery from the funds of the Protestant Church.

MR. M'LAREN

said, he had listened with great surprise to the hon. Baronet's denunciation of the Scotch Members. The hon. Baronet seemed to misapprehend the state of public opinion in Scotland on this subject. He thought the hon. Baronet could not have been in Scotland during the period of the elections, and could not have read the speeches that were then delivered. If he had, he would never have fallen into such a great error as he had done respecting the state of public feeling in that country. His argument assumed that, by granting compensation to Maynooth College out of the funds of the Irish Church, they aggravated the feeling which existed in Scotland against the Maynooth Grant, and that to take the £360,000 or £370.000 that was required out of the Consolidated Fund would be a concession to the feelings of the Protestants of Scotland. [Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE: I never said anything of the sort.] He believed that if it had been proposed in this Bill that the, capital sum to compensate Maynooth should be given out of the Consolidated Fund, instead of the surplus funds of the Irish Church, there would have arisen an agitation in Scotland, from North to South, which the Government would have found it very troublesome indeed to encounter. And why? Because there were thousands in Scotland who, having a strong opinion against the Roman Catholic religion, thought it was almost sinful to pay taxes in the usual way for that religion. And when there were ecclesiastical funds in Ireland so large that the Government did not know what to do with them, and amply sufficient to compensate the claimants on the Maynooth Grant, the Protestants of Scotland thought they were entitled to say—''Out of your super-abundance you may settle the Maynooth question without asking us as tax-payers to contribute £300,000 or £400,000." He thought that if strict justice wore done, all the money that had ever been paid in the shape of Regium Donum, and the money that had been paid to Maynooth out of the Consolidated Fund ought to be paid back, out of the first of the moneys derived from the property of the Trish Church.

MR. GREENE

said, he was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Edinburgh speak as he had done, considering what had happened last Session. In Committee on the Established Church (Ireland), last year, he moved— And, that no part of the Endowments of the Anglican Church be applied to the Endowment of the institutions of other religious communions. Among those who voted with him in support, of that Motion he found the names of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird), for Linlithgow (Mr. M'Lagan), for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor), for Newcastle (Mr. Candlish), for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Sinclair Aytoun), for Glasgow (Mr. Dalglish), for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk), for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), and for Plymouth (Mr. Morrison). He might mention the names of others not now in Parliament, among whom was Mr. Mill. He should be the more surprised but that it was no uncommon thing for hon. Members to change their opinions. But the country felt strongly on this question; and he firmly believed that if it had been thought the money of the Irish Church would be used for the purposes of Maynooth the movement would not have been supported. Hon. Members would remember how strong the feeling had been each year against any grant whatever being made to Maynooth; how much more strong, then, should be the feeling against a grant of Protestant funds? He did not desire to say one word against Roman Catholics. They had as much right to their opinions as he had to his own; but there was a strong opinion in this country, which he shared, that Romanism was a great error, that it was opposed to religious and civil freedom. Hon. Members on the Government side felt themselves bound on this particular question rather more tightly than some of them liked, and he had no doubt they would gladly be let loose to vote as they pleased. He called upon them to be consistent, and go with him into the Lobby as they did last year—in spite of the strong appeals of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) and the present Prime Minister—like good and conscientious men.

MR. M'LAREN

said, he believed the memory of the hon. Gentleman was even more defective than that of the hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth. The Resolution to which the hon. Gentleman referred was not one about the Maynooth Grant. The Resolution which the House had previously adopted was to the effect that the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum should be abolished, along with the Irish Church, and that all of them should be compensated by due regard being had to all personal interests. Of course, he quoted from memory, but, he believed, that was the effect of the Resolution. The additional Resolution there after proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite should be interpreted by the proposal of the then Government in favour of "levelling up"—and which had formerly been favoured by many distinguished Members of the Liberal party—for endowing a Roman Catholic Church Establishment, in addition to the Protestant, Church. The Resolution of the hon. Member was directed against these proposals, and not against compensating the personal claims connected with Maynooth out of the property of the Irish Church. In this sense the Resolution was discussed, and in this sense he voted for it. If the hon. Member would read his own speech on the occasion he would find that the Resolution was directed against this "levelling up" system—the proposal that part, of the surplus revenues of the Established Church in Ireland should go to endow the Roman Catholic Church. He (Mr. M'Laren) intended voting on this occasion consistently with his vote on the hon. Member's Motion, because his opinions had not in the least changed.

MR. GREENE

said, the words of his Amendment were— And, that no part of the Endowments of the Anglican Church be applied to the Endowment of the institutions of other religious communions.

THE LORD ADVOCATE

rose as one of those representatives of Scotland who, according to his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir James Elphinstone), had deserted the traditions of their country, and wished to defend himself and the very large and important body of his fellow-countrymen —the constituencies of Scotland—upon whom the imputation had been cast. It was true Scotland had been always strong as a Protestant country, and true also that she was now as distinctly Protestant as she had been in 1560, and as Presbyterian as she had been in 1640. But there was one tradition which the hon. Baronet—who, by the way, did not represent a Scotch constituency—had forgotten. The Scotch had always objected, as contrary to justice and right, to impose upon a reluctant majority the Established Church of a minority. They had remembered that tradition during the recent election; and it was not necessary that Scotch representatives should express their opinions upon the points contained in this Bill, because the views of the country were so plainly stated as to leave no manner of doubt about them. They supported the proposition to disendow and disestablish the Irish Church, not because they were not Protestants, but because they were; because they knew, from their own experience, what it was to be oppressed by the Church of the minority. But the hon. Member had raised a question of fact, and he rose to deny the statement made. The hon. Baronet had said that it was well understood in the Scotch constituencies that no compensation was to be paid out of the funds of the Irish Church to Maynooth; he, on the contrary, could state as a fact, from his own experience, that the general impression throughout the constituencies, as far as he knew it, was that compensation was to be paid both to the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics. The questions—how much that compensation should be, or whether the money that was to be paid was to go beyond compensation, were entirely different questions. But it was undoubtedly the fact not merely that no pledge was given that the money should not be so applied, but it was the general understanding that it was to be so applied. The charge of inconsistency against the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) could be disposed of by a reference to the Journals of the House, from which it would be seen the course of business in Committee on the Irish Church was as follows. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun) moved the following Resolution:— That when the Anglican Church in Ireland is disestablished and disendowed, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and. the Regium Donum be discontinued; and that no part of the secularized funds of the Anglican Church, or any State funds whatever, be applied in any way, or under any form, to the endowment or furtherance of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland, or to the establishment or maintenance of Roman Catholic denominational schools or colleges. To that an Amendment was moved to leave out all the words after "that," for the purpose of inserting the following words:— When legislative effect shall have been given to the First Resolution of this Committee respecting the Established Church of Ireland, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and the Regium Donum be discontinued. The Committee divided upon that question, and the original Motion was lost. The present Prime Minister then moved as an addition to the Amendment, which had now become the substantive Motion, the words "due regard being had to all personal interests." Upon these words being added the hon. Member (Mr. Greene) proposed as an Amendment— And, that no part of the Endowments of the Anglican Church be applied to the Endowment of the institutions of other religious communions. This was lost, and the Resolution finally come to was as follows:— That when legislative effect shall have been given to the First Resolution of this Committee, respecting the Established Church of Ireland, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and the Regium Donum be discontinued, due regard being had to all personal interests. The question, therefore, was whether it was compensation or endowment proposed by the Bill. The Committee had given compensation to the Presbyterians; and now that had been done it was sought to deprive the College of Maynooth of the same measure of justice.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONSTE

said, he had made no allusion to the Consolidated fund. What he maintained was that the country understood at the last election that no portion of the funds of the plunder of the Irish Church should be devoted to Popish purposes. It was upon that understanding that they had canvassed their constituents, and it was certainly upon that understanding that he himself had been returned to Parliament, He did not think the representatives of Scotland would thank the Lord Advocate for the explanation he had given of their views upon the matter. He believed, when it was known in Scotland to-morrow that it was the deliberate intention of the Scotch Members to endow Popery out of Protestant funds—["No, no!"]—it would be as a fiery cross to rouse Scotland against the Government of the right hon. Gentleman. At that very moment the Scotch Members, by their own mouthpiece, admitted that they were in league with Cardinal Cullen. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh; but that was the position of the question. They were in league with Cardinal Cullen to plunder the Established Church of Ireland; and they were, to a great extent, about to endow the Popish religion by paying compensation money to Maynooth.

M R. H. A. HERBERT

said, that as he entertained strong feelings on the subject, he desired to say a very few words. He agreed with hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House that the people of this country did not, at the time of the General Election, understand that the condensation money which was to be paid to Maynooth was to come out of the funds of the Protestant Estab- lished Church. He would say this, however, that it certainly was understood that Maynooth was to be compensated out of some funds. For himself he was perfectly willing, if hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side would support a proposal to endow that College out of the Consolidated Fund, to walk into the same Lobby with them. He believed however that, if once the present opportunity was allowed to slip, Maynooth would be left without compensation, whether out of the funds of the Church or the Consolidated Fund.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, whatever might be the merits of the question in dispute between his hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Greene) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), the Committee would probably be of opinion that the hon. Member for Edinburgh had maintained that character for shrewdness which was enjoyed by his countrymen. For a very long period the people of England had been under the impression that a very strong feeling existed in Scotland against any contribution being made from any funds whatever towards the support of the Roman Catholic religion. But, from the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, it would seem that the English people had been labouring under a very great delusion. It would appear that the opinion of the people of Scotland was not against the endowment of the Roman Catholic religion, but was merely against being compelled to put their hands into their pockets for the purpose of paying for that endowment. It would seem that when the contributions for the endowment of Maynooth were derived from any other source than these same pockets it was called an act of justice. Hon. Members on the Opposition side had been twitted by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government with having allowed the clause relative to the compensation of the Presbyterians to pass without comment, and then violently opposing the clause for the compensation of Maynooth. He begged, however, to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a fact which he had evidently forgotten—namely, that they were, in the instance under discussion, creating a permanent endowment, not for an ordinary religious body, but for a College. The right hon. Gentleman said that Gentlemen on the opposite side did not object to privileges being granted to the Presbyterians, but that they objected to their being granted to the Roman Catholics. Now, he begged to remind the right hon. Gentleman that, when the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun), some nights ago, rose to move his Amendment, objecting to compensation in a lump sum being given to Maynooth, he was prevented from proceeding upon a point of Order; and the right hon. Gentleman himself, in objecting to the Amendment which he (Mr. Lowther) ventured to propose, anticipated the discussion by moving to strike out the clause, stating as his reason that he wished the discussion on the endowment of the Colleges to be taken on the question of the endowment of Maynooth. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] He begged pardon if he had misrepresented the light hon. Gentleman; but he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that it would be convenient if Clause 37 were struck out, for a similar question might be raised on the clause now under discussion. What he wanted to convey to the Committee was that the object of the right hon. Gentleman, in moving to strike out Clause 37, was that the endowment of the Presbyterian College might be considered at the same time as that of the College of Maynooth. Now, he (Mr. Lowther) objected quite as much to the payment of a lump sum to the Presbyterian College, as a corporate body, as to Maynooth. He objected as a matter of principle, and not as a question of "No Popery," or anything of that kind; and, as the question was now under discussion, he trusted his hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) would not be deterred from dividing. The question was one of importance, and for his own part he would sooner see every shilling of the proceeds of the Irish Church property shovelled into St. George's Channel than that one shilling of it should be given to the permanent endowment of Popery.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

said, that as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Greene) had mentioned him as having voted with him last year, he desired to make one or two observations by way of explanation of the course which he then adopted. He supported the Motion of the hon. Member because he understood it declared that none of the funds of the Anglican Church were to be given to endow any religious denomination whatever, including, of course, the Roman Catholic. He put it to hon. Gentlemen candidly to declare whether, as the clause under discussion at present stood, it was or was not an endowment of Popery. There was where they differed. Gentlemen on his side of the House tried to make out that it was simply compensation; but he had no hesitation in saying that it was more; and, if he should have an opportunity that night, he should prove that it was a permanent endowment of Maynooth, to the extent of £200,000. Holding this opinion, he found himself placed in a somewhat difficult position. If he voted for retaining the clause as it stood, he would appear to give his vote in favour of the permanent endowment of Maynooth, and if, on the other hand, he voted with the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir George Jenkinson), for taking the money for the compensation out of the Consolidated Fund, instead of out of the secularized funds of the Established Church, he would appear to be equally in favour of endowing Popery. He did not wish to do either the one or the other. He did not wish to give a shilling in the shape of permanent endowment.

MR. HUNT

said, in reply to the challenge of the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. H. A. Herbert), he wished to state that, as far as he was concerned, he was willing to vote for compensation, to the College of Maynooth out of the Consolidated Fund, no agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the country fully understood that no compensation was to be paid to Maynooth, or to any religious body, out of the property of the Irish Church. He considered it would be perfectly fair that the Consolidated Fund should be at the expense of providing compensation; because, as soon as the Maynooth Grant was repealed by the passing of that Bill, the Consolidated Fund would be relieved of a very heavy burden that was at present placed upon it. He begged, however, to be understood as limiting himself to this extent, that he would not agree to compensation being granted out of the Consolidated Fund to Maynooth to the extent of fourteen times the income of that institution. What he should be willing to consent to was, that compensation should be paid in respect of life interests to those who had life interests in the grant, and suitable compensation in respect of the average attendance of students at the College, but that it should not be granted to the extent he had indicated. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had stated very fairly that the interests of the Presbyterians and those of the Roman Catholics ought to stand on the same footing. When the right hon. Gentleman made the declaration that none of the proceeds of the Church property should go to the support of any religious body, he (Mr. Hunt) supposed that the remark applied equally to the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics. Be that as it might, there could be no doubt that the point the country looked at was with regard to the Roman Catholics. When the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman was made, there could be no doubt that the eyes of the country were fastened on Maynooth, and not on the Regium Donum. But, whatever views their constituents took of it, they, in that House, ought not to confine their attention to the question of Maynooth. He was not present when Clause 36 was passed; but he was prepared to make up for his dereliction of duty by voting to strike out Clause 39, and Clause 36 also when the Report was brought up. He fully admitted that the two things ought to go together. He had intended to vote against any of these charges being thrown on the funds of the Established Church, and he was prepared to maintain that view.

MR. G. H. MOORE

observed, that, in the old debates which took place on the endowment of Maynooth, the common, conscientious objection always started was that it was wrong to tax British Protestants for the maintenance of a religion which they disapproved; but the most having been made of that scruple, a new one was invoked, and the objection now was that Maynooth should be endowed or compensated out of the Established Church. Those who urged that objection, however, forgot that it was only in case of those funds ceasing to be the property of the Established Church that there should be applied to the compensation of Maynooth a portion of a surplus which was so large that nobody knew what to do with it.

MR. NEWDEGATE

admitted the truth of the observation that if they were to assume that the property of the Protestant Church had been confiscated, it had ceased to be that of the denomination to which it had belonged. But Gentlemen on his side of the House had always objected to confiscation; and they did not think it was any additional recommendation in favour of confiscation that the confiscated property of the Protestant Church was to be applied to the purposes of the Roman Catholic religion. That was the reason why last Session the hon. Member for Bury was not able to accept the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade that the Prime Minister had given the House an assurance quite sufficient to convince any reasonable man that no part of these funds would be applied to purposes of any other religious denomination. The Prime Minister had treated this matter and the opposition to this clause as the result of mere religious prejudice, and a prejudice, moreover, displayed only upon the part of Protestants. The truth, however, was that the objection to the endowment of Maynooth had its root in a disapproval of the dominant spirit of Ultramontanism now supreme at Rome—a spirit which was perfectly well understood at Paris, in Italy, and in Spain; but which, he was sorry to say, was not so clearly understood as it ought to be in the House of Commons. There was a difference between the Roman Catholic religion and the temporal ambition of the Papacy which was perfectly understood through every court and every country of Europe among Roman Catholics. A Roman Catholic, Mr. Whittle, had, in a pamphlet and in other work, explained this difference as the reason why many Roman Catholics object to sending their children to Colleges which are under exclusively priestly direction. This objection was founded upon the difference known to exist between the Roman Catholic religion and what was recognized all over the world as Popery. Yet the Prime Minister stigmatized this knowledge as prejudice. Those who sat on the Opposition Benches were taunted because they had not objected to the granting of compensation to the Presbyterians, and because having so acted they were now objecting to the endowment of the Roman Catholics. But there was a great and material dis- tinction between the two cases. The Presbyterians acknowledge the supremacy of the Crown, but Cardinal Cullen, Dr. Manning, and their followers repudiate that supremacy. That was sufficient to justify the hon. Member for Bury in moving, as he had done last year, that no part of the Church funds should be given towards the endowment of Maynooth. He (Mr. Newdegate) had no wish to detain the Committee. He had risen principally to protest against the doctrine of the Prime Minister that the opposition to this clause had had its origin in prejudice.

MR. ELLICE

must say, with reference to the willingness of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hunt) to give compensation or endowment, or whatever else they might term it, out of the Consolidated Fund, but not out of the surplus revenues of the Disestablished Church in Ireland, that he, for one, could see no difference between the two funds. If the Consolidated Fund was the property of the public, so also were the surplus revenues of the Church in Ireland. Therefore, as regarded that argument, he, for one, could lay but very little stress upon it. He did not want to go into the present argument as to the endowment of Maynooth; they had to deal with a particular Amendment, and to that he would confine himself. He was very strongly opposed to that part of the clause which would set up, under Parliamentary sanction, an ecclesiastical Roman Catholic corporation in Ireland, and he should be prepared, when the proper time came, to vote against any additional endowment to Maynooth. On the other hand, he felt bound by the Resolution passed last year to give proper and full compensation to all existing interests. How were they to give that compensation? He thought they gave a been to Ireland last year when they consented that, instead of applying any of the property of the Disestablished Church to general public purposes, it should be entirely applied to the benefit of Ireland; and one of the very first purposes to which it could be legitimately applied was to compensate the interests that existed in Ireland. He certainly thought that the surplus funds of the Disestablished Church, after providing for all just claims in connection with existing interests, should be appropriated to compen- sate existing interests in connection with Maynooth as now existing under the Consolidated Fund. It was therefore impossible that he could do otherwise than vote against the Amendment of his hon. Friend opposite (Sir George Jenkinson). He should vote unwillingly, for he was opposed to the clause as it stood, and if not altered he should be prepared to say "No" to it. But if compensation were to be given at all—and after the promises of last year they could not avoid that—then it ought to come out of the surplus funds of the Disestablished Church.

SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATE

felt that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had placed them in a very painful position by contriving that compensation to the Presbyterian body should be mixed up with compensation to Maynooth. He had always felt that the two questions of religious endowment and academical endowment had no connection with each other. In relation to the question of Trinity College, he maintained that no substantial injustice was done in Ireland by the exclusive character of its endowments, because there existed an endowment for the College of Maynooth, and also for the Presbyterian body; and when the time came for considering the case of Trinity College, he hoped the generous sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don) would not be forgotten. If it wore possible in a matter of so much difficulty, he should have preferred to adopt the course pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt). But no one knew better than that right hon. Gentleman himself that the question could not be put to the Committee in the way he had indicated. It was impossible for them to vote upon the question of whether this compensation was to be taken out of the Church Fund or the Consolidated Fund. For himself he was in favour of endowments. He could not help giving his vote in favour of the proposition of the Government. Hon. Members should remember what was the state of things at the time of the Union, when there was an express understanding that all those rights should be respected, and it was impossible for the House to turn round and utterly ignore this. He felt placed in a position of difficulty; but he thought that if compensation was given to the Presbyterians it could not be refused to the Roman Catholics. At the same time, he thought that the two questions should not have been mixed up together.

MR. M'ARTHUR

said, he had not yet spoken on this question—first, because he had no wish to travel over old ground, and, secondly, because he thought that votes were better than speeches; but he could not sit silent and hear the statements made by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. He most distinctly repudiated what some of those hon. Gentlemen had said—namely, that Protestant Members on the Ministerial side were betraying the interests of the Protestant cause and lending themselves to the designs of Cardinal Cullen. He had listened to the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), and he found that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was actually advocating the principle of "levelling up," and suggesting to the House that a certain income should be given to the Roman Catholic clergy, and also an increased endowment to Maynooth. And the right hon. and learned Gentleman went even further than that, for he said the standard of education at Maynooth would be improved if the grant were increased. His hon. Friend the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce), the other night, advocated the payment of the Roman Catholic clergy, and therefore it came with very bad grace from Gentlemen opposite to say those on the Ministerial side were in alliance with Cardinal Cullen. He did not regard this as a question of principle. The principle was surrendered when the grant to Maynooth was made; and if they were dealing with the question for the first time, he should oppose it; but he agreed with the hon. Baronet (Sir Frederick Heygate) that as a nation they were bound in honour to give a fair and equitable compensation to Maynooth College. He advocated this measure in the interest of the Established Church in Ireland, which he believed would be in a better position than it had over been before. With regard to the question of amount, he considered they were bound to give the compensation on the principle upon which the grant was originally given. When Sir Robert Peel introduced the Maynooth Bill he said— Instead of defining exactly what is the amount to be paid to each Professor, we propose to allot to the Trustees of Maynooth a certain sum to be placed at their discretion for the charges of the establishment in respect of officers and Professors. On that principle Maynooth was entitled to a fair compensation. They were giving the Church in Ireland, with a population under 700,000, its churches—a life interest to its clergy, and its glebes on most favourable terms. The Presbyterians, numbering about 520,000 were to have £700,000—fourteen years' purchase of the grants to their College, besides some other small amounts. He thought therefore, when they considered that the Roman Catholics numbered more than 4,500,000, they were giving no unfair or unreasonable sum by giving fourteen years' purchase of the grant to Maynooth. He had from the first supported this great measure, not merely in the interest of Ireland, but in the interest of the Irish Church. Hitherto it had been placed in direct antagonism to the great majority of the Irish people. They were now about to take it out of that false position—to strike off the fetters which had so long impeded its progress and repressed its energies—to give, it the power of self-government and the exercise of a salutary discipline. He (Mr. M'Arthur) had no fear of the result. He confidently believed that, under its new circumstances, the Irish Church would be more prosperous than ever, and would more effectually promote the interests of Protestantism in Ireland.

MR. HENLEY

I wish to say a few words to explain why I shall vote as I am about to do. I will not say a word on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who tells us he is not going to vote upon principle.

MR. M'ARTHUR

explained that there was no question of principle as to the Maynooth Grant involved in the matter, but that it was a question of compensation alone, dealing with existing interests.

MR. HENLEY

The question we have now to consider is, whether the compensation, or whatever it may be called, ought to be paid to Maynooth out of Church property, or if not from Church property, from other sources? Now I certainly understood at the time this measure was introduced, and the Resolutions were passed on this subject last year, that the Church of Ireland was to be disestablished and disendowed, respect being had to vested personal interests. I also understood that the grant to Haynooth and the Regium Donum were to cease, respect being also had to vested personal interests. I understood that to be the general proposition. I also understood most distinctly that the surplus funds of the Church were to be applied to Irish purposes. That was most distinctly stated; and I cannot for one moment understand how it can be an Irish purpose to relieve the tax-payers of the United Kingdom from paying their share of compensation for the vested interests of the Regium Donum and Maynooth. That is the simple view that I take of the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson). One word now as to what fell from the Prime Minister. He used a most ingenious argument to show that the question was concluded, because nothing had been said as to the early part of the clause with reference to the Regium Donum. But I think we should have been justly exposed to a charge of, what some might term, factious opposition if we had raised this question upon the double issue. It is reasonable and fair that what goes to the Regium Donum should go to Maynooth. The amount is anther matter; but I think it would not have been fair, in carrying on the opposition to this Bill, if the question had been raised first upon the Regium Donum, and then afterwards upon Maynooth. It is more usual upon a question of principle to raise it at the end of the clause, when it comprises all the points at issue; and I think the hon. Baronet has raised the question fairly, because this one clause comprise both the Regium Donum and the Maynooth Grant. Of course, if the Committee adopt the words of the hon. Baronet, when the clause comes to stand part of the Bill, the whole of it will go together. That is my answer to the Prime Minister when he argues that it is unfair to draw a distinction in this matter. The argument was an ingenious one; but the Committee would remark that the right hon. Gentleman did not say a single word why this money should come out of the property of the Church instead of out of the Consolidated Fund. He evades that question altogether, and that is the question before the House.

MR. BRIGHT

Sir, the Motion, or rather the Amendment, of the hon. Baronet the Member for "Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) is rather different, I think, from what many Members of the House suppose. The proposition, if it were carried, would say that the compensation for Maynooth should not be taken out of the Church Fund. It does not say from what source it shall be taken. I leave to the House to consider what would be said if such a Resolution could be carried. You would have, I believe, from a largo portion of Ireland, and you would have from one end of Great Britain to the other, a protest against taking the compensation out of the Consolidated Fund, and then the result would be either that the House might be forced back to rescind the Amendment—at least to restore the clause—or else to come to the conclusion, which I think few men in this House would wish to see us arrive at, that for the institution of Maynooth College there should be no compensation at all. Therefore, the House should be a little cautious as to the course which it is invited to pursue by the hon. Member for Wiltshire and some other hon. Members who have spoken on that side of the House. Let us suppose for a moment that the Amendment to the question was whether the compensation should come out of the Church Fund or out of the taxes. If it came out of the taxes it would make the surplus so much larger; the House has already determined what sums shall be granted to the Disendowed Church. If hon. Gentleman were to adopt the same principle with regard to the Presbyterians, we should have to pay £800,000 out of the Consolidated Fund, and nearly £400,000 for the Maynooth compensation, and if these two sums were paid out of the Consolidated Fund it would give the increase to the surplus in the hands of the Church Commission. But what was to be done with the surplus in the hands of the Church Commission? It was one of the complaints of hon. Gentlemen opposite that it would give, some of them said, too much to the landlords of Ireland. Others, and those who are the strongest against compensation are the strongest in saying that it would give support to an institution in Ireland which would come entirely into the hands of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, and therefore, hon. Gentlemen themselves, by using such statements, appeared to him to be inconsistent with the course they were taking to-day You have done this for the Presbyterians—you have already voted for their College compensation out of the Church Funds upon the same principle. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) is quite wrong in some of the observations which he has made in reference to this clause. We are, at his moment on Clause 40—["Clause 39"]; and on Clauses 36 and 37, two pages back, we settled the question as regards the compensation to be given to Presbyterians. Surely there is no Member of the House will say at this moment that he was taken in on the question of the Presbyterian vote. I know perfectly well the Members for Wiltshire and Warwickshire will not deny it. They are on that side just now the special champions of Protestantism. They will not deny that they understood perfectly well what the House was doing when the House decided the Presbyterian compensation. And, therefore, the object of this Amendment is to signify the continued hostility of certain Gentlemen in the House—that hostility which has existed for 300 years—with regard to the Catholic religion in Ireland. If this College of Maynooth were not a Catholic College every Member of the House knows that there would not be a whisper of dissent. You are acting consistently, I admit, upon the principle upon which the Established Church was founded, which was one of political and religions hostility to the Roman Catholic religion. There are few hon. Members on this side of the House to whom an appeal to act consistently in this matter would be made in vain. I believe there are but two such Gentleman. I do not say one word with regard to the inconsistency of those Gentlemen. I believe they are as honest in the course they are taking as I am. But I am sure every Member of the House will feel that the principle on which the Government is acting in this clause is consistent with the principle of the Bill, which is that of religious equality in Ireland for the future. If the House were to throw out this clause, on the ground that the persons to whom it applies are of the Catholic Church, they would set their seal on this Maynooth question to the same grievous and hateful policy which for the last three centimes has prevailed in Ireland. We know what has been the fruit of that policy, and we see, now that it has come to an end and when we are about to turn over a new leaf, that every man in Ireland will be conscious hereafter that the Imperial Parliament will judge fairly, and equally, and justly between all the people of the realm, whether they are attached to the Protestant or to the Catholic Church.

MR. DISRAELI

I will endeavour to recall the attention of the Committee to the real point before them, though. I must notice the fallacy of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright) with respect to Maynooth. He seems quite to forget that it was an Irish Protestant Parliament that founded Maynooth, and that it was a Protestant and Conservative Minister who re-established it on a more extensive basis than that upon which it originally stood. If he does remember these facts, how is he justified in saying that the vote he contemplates we shall give is only animated by hostility to this institution, which was established by a Protestant Parliament, and enlarged by the Conservative party in this country? I am in favour of compensation to the College of Maynooth. Last year the great majority of the House were agreed that if the College was disturbed by the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, it should be entitled to compensation. I desire that that compensation should not only be just, but liberal; because in measures of this kind, involving such extensive change, we should not only consider material interests, but the feelings and sentiments of those concerned, and which no mere pounds, shillings, and pence scale of compensation can adequately meet. Whether the question refers to the Protestant Episcopal Church, to those who have enjoyed the Regium Donum, or to those interested in the College of Maynooth, we ought to be influenced in making any provision for compensation, not only by feelings of justice, but of liberality. But having said that, I must, at the same time, say that it was understood last year, certainly by the country, that the compensation to Maynooth should not be derived out of the confiscated funds of the Protestant Episcopal Church. When the right hon. Gentleman tells us that if we adopted this proposition there would be general discontent, not only throughout England, but even in Ireland, I say that the feeling of the country has been one of astonishment, that the fund from which this compensation is proposed to be given, should be part of the confiscated property of the Church; because it was thoroughly understood on both sides of the House that, whatever might be the consequences, the surplus revenue of the Disestablished and Disendowed Church should be applied to Irish purposes, not hitherto provided for. And here I must notice a feature in the addresses of the Prime Minister upon this subject, as to the mutual financial relations between England and Ireland. Whenever there is any question as to the financial relations between the two countries, the right hon. Gentleman falls into the habit of going back into the national accounts for a number of years, and then conjuring up a claim against Ireland. ["No, no!"] Yes, most decidedly. The right hon. Gentleman has gone out of his way to estimate the sums Ireland has received from the Consolidated Fund, and concludes by saying that the claims made on the Exchequer of the United Kingdom is one that ought not to be admitted. But that is a most dangerous mode of dealing with the subject. We cannot, in matters of this kind, be too clear and straightforward, and if there was an understanding on the part of Ireland, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, that all the surplus funds should be applied to Irish purposes that ought to be observed. I am in favour of ample compensation being given to Maynooth, and I wish it to be supplied from the sources from which we understood last year that the existing Government contemplated deriving it. Taking that view of the case, I do not see how we can be open to the charges of the right hon. Gentleman who has just addressed the Committee, because we acknowledge the first claim of Maynooth to compensation, and indicate the source whence it ought to be derived by observing the engagement Parliament entered into with the country. It does therefore appear to me extraordinary that, under such circumstances and on such grounds, such accusations should be made against us as have been made in the expressions of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in reference to this vote made one observation which I admit has considerable point. But its effect is really of a very limited character when fairly considered, and, so far as I am concerned, it has little application. I acknowledge, Sir, there is an apparent inconsistency in the fact of having passed the 36th clause, providing compensation for the recipients of the Regium Domim, and now offering opposition to the clause proposing compensation to the College of Maynooth. ["Hear, hear!"] But the hon. Gentleman who cheers me evidently forgets that I had put an Amendment on the Paper to omit Clause 36 altogether; and, consequently, I feel I am not open to any accusation of sinister or inconsistent conduct in this matter. The reason why I did not press my Amendment to a division was this—I told the Committee that the Amendment which I had placed on the Paper had one main object—that object being to obtain, not an adequate, but some endowment for the Protestant Episcopal Church—such a sum as would animate the friends of the Church in Ireland to contribute an amount that would preserve that Church. But after the decisions come to by the Committee on several occasions, and after the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had announced in a distinct manner that it was a part of his policy, from which he could not deviate, that no portion of the property of the Church should be left to it as an endowment, I felt that it was useless to trouble the Committee with endless Amendments on the subject. But my Motion, nevertheless, appeared on the Paper. There was an additional reason why I did not press it. It was intimated to me that there wore many hon. Gentlemen who, though advocating the principle which I was contending for, thought that the division upon the point ought to be taken upon a subsequent stage, in which the interests both of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic Churches would be at issue. So far, then, as I and those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who concur with me are concerned, I do not think that the reproaches of the right hon. Gentleman opposite have any force. If I were to follow my own inclination, I should say, after the expression of the Committee on my Amendment, I should not desire to ask for the further expression of its opinion on the subject. But as my opinion is challenged on the policy of the question now under consideration. I do not think it is consistent with my duty to be silent. I say, then, that my opinion is unchanged—namely, that the compensation for those who have hither to enjoyed the Regium Donum and the grant for the College of Maynooth should be of a liberal character, and that such compensation should be derived from the Imperial Exchequer. Being asked to give my opinion as to how the principle of compensation to the Presbyterian body of Ireland and to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth should be settled, and the source from which the compensation should be derived, I take this opportunity of re-asserting that opinion which I have always entertained.

MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE

said, that, as the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) had reminded the Committee that the increased and permanent endowment of Maynooth, enacted by Parliament some twenty years ago, was the work of a Conservative statesman and Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, he wished to supplement that statement by another, which was that the endowment of Maynooth was carried in the teeth of the Conservative party, and in the teeth of the strenuous opposition of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. But his main object in rising was to challenge the assertion of the right hon. Gentleman that, in the last year, his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government had given the House reason to understand that the compensation to be given to the College of Maynooth Has not to come from the property of the Irish Church. He (Mr. C. Fortescue) denied that there was the shadow of a foundation for this assertion. He had not heard one, though hon. Gentlemen opposite had no doubt ransacked the pages of Hansard in order to prepare themselves for that discussion. Not a single expression of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had been discovered which justified that statement, and he (Mr. C. Fortescue) ventured to say that nothing of the kind had fallen from either the right hon. Gentleman or any of his Colleagues. He held in his hand a report of the expressions used last year by his right hon. Friend, at the head of the Government on this very point. On the 2nd of April in last year, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) inquired whether, in the event of the Resolutions moved by him being carried, he would include in any Bill which might be introduced by himself, in pursuance of those Resolutions, provisions for the repeal of the Maynooth Grant? And his right hon. Friend replied that any plan, such as he had been endeavouring to lay the basis and foundation of, must include provisions, whether immediate or not, for the entire relief of the Consolidated Fund from all charges, either for the Maynooth Grant or any other purposes of religion in Ireland. Again, on the following day, the 3rd of April, in reply to the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Vance) his right hon. Friend said that, by arrangements of some kind introduced into such plan, provisions should be made for relieving the Consolidated Fund from payment for the purposes of religion in Ireland. In the absence of any evidence on the other side, he asked the Committee whether that was the language of a person who had any idea in his mind of providing for these compensations out of the Consolidated Fund? The opinion expressed last year by the Prime Minister was repeated in the Preamble of the present Bill, where it was stated that the property of the Irish Church should be applied for the advantage of the Irish people, after satisfying upon principles of equality, as between the several religious denominations in Ireland, all just, and equitable claims.

SIR GEORGE JENKINSON

said, he did not think he owed any apology for the Amendment which he offered to the Committee. The speeches that had been made on the subject and the discussion which they had heard showed the vital importance of the question it raised, and the vital issue that awaited it. He asked, why did the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government on Tuesday last seek to entrap him (Sir George Jenkinson) when he asked him to give way to the Motion of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun)? The President of the Board of Trade challenged, him as the champion of the Protestant Church, and seemed to treat that title as a term of obloquy. He (Sir George Jenkinson) accepted the challenge, but he repudiated the sneer it was intended to convey. He did so without any feeling of disrespect to the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed he was not sensible of having used a single word of disrespect Towards the Roman Catholics in Ireland during the whole of the debate. He differed, however, from them upon a vital and fundamental point. If they looked to France, Italy, or Spain, they would see the results of Roman Catholic predominance. This country had thrown off the supremacy of that Church at the cost of some of the Lest blood of the sons of England, and it was in an evil moment now that they were asked by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and his Government to re-establish the supremacy of the Pope. A great deal had been said as to what fund this compensation should come from. He had never said that it should come out of the Consolidated Fund. It was no business of his to suggest the source from which this money was to come. Previous to the last election, a correspondence had taken place between the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) and Mr. W. W. Jubb, a dissenting minister at Birmingham, on this subject. Mr. Jubb thus wrote to the Premier— There are certain electors in this town who five under the impression that you do not intend to take away the Maynooth Grant at the same time that you disestablish the Irish Church, This has led them to support the Tory candidate, though they are Liberal in principle on every other subject. The right hon. Gentleman, in his reply, said— Not only my own declarations, on every occasion, but the Resolution unanimously passed by the House of Commons, bind me in honour, as I am bound in purpose and conviction, to propose that the Maynooth Grant should be wound up, and should cease with the Church Establishment. Can words go further? He (Sir George Jenkinson) considered that statement of the Premier to be very evasive—at all events, in the application of it now—in as much as though he left it to be supposed that he desired the extinction of the Maynooth Grant altogether, nevertheless, according to his principle of compensation. Maynooth would ultimately be better endowed than ever.

MR. COLLINS

, who spoke amid interruption, which made him almost inaudible, was understood to say that he would support no proposition which made the compensation to Maynooth payable by the tax-payers of England

Question put, "That the words 'in respect of stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 318; Noes 192: Majority 126.

AYES.
Acland, T. D. Cavendish, Lord G.
Adair, H. E. Chadwick, D.
Agar-Ellis, hn. L. G. F. Childers, rt. hn. H.C.E.
Akroyd, E. Cholmeley, Capt.
Allen, W. S. Cholmeley, Sir M.
Amcotts, Col. W. C. Clay, J.
Anderson, G. Clifton, Sir R. J.
Anson, hon. A. H. A. Clive, Col. E.
Anstruther, Sir R. Cogan, rt. hn. W. H. F.
Antrobus, E. Colebrooke, Sir T. E.
Armitstead, G. Coleridge, Sir J. D.
Ayrton, A. S. Cowen, J.
Backhouse, E. Cowper, hon. H. F.
Bagwell, J. Cowper, rt. hon. W. F.
Baines, E. Craufurd, E. H. J.
Baker, R. B. W. Crossley, Sir F.
Barclay, A. C. Dalglish, R.
Bass, M. A. Dalrymple, D.
Baxter, W. E. D'Arcey, M. P.
Bazley, T. Davie, Sir H. R. F.
Beaumont, Capt. F. Davies, R.
Beaumont, H. F. Davison, J. R.
Beaumont, W. B. Dawson, R. P.
Bentall, E. H. Delahunty, J.
Biddulph, M. De La Poer, E.
Blake, J. A. Denison, E.
Blennerhassett, Sir R. Denman, hon. G.
Bolckow, H. W. F. Dent, J. D.
Bonham-Carter, J. Devereux, R. J.
Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P. Dickinson, S. S.
Bowring, E. A. Digby, K. T.
Brady, J. Dilke, C. W.
Brand, right hon. H. Dillwyn, L. L.
Brand, H. R. Dixon, G.
Brassey, T. Dodds, J.
Brewer, Dr. Downing, M'C.
Bright, rt. hon. J. Dowse, R.
Bright, J. (Manchester) Duff, M. E. G.
Brinckman, Capt. Duff, R. W.
Brocklehurst, W. C. Edwardes, hon. Col. W.
Brogden, A. Edwards, H.
Brown, A. H. Egerton, Capt. hon. F.
Bruce, Lord C. Ellice, E.
Bruce, rt. hon. H. A. Enfield, Viscount
Bryan, G. L. Erskine, Vice-Ad. J. E.
Buller, Sir E. M. Esmonde, Sir J.
Bulwer, rt. hn. Sir H. L. Ewing, H. E. C.
Burke, Viscount Eykyn, R.
Bury, Viscount Fagan, Captain
Buxton, C. FitzGerald, right hon. Lord O. A.
Cadogan, hon. F. W.
Callan, P. Fitzmaurice, Lord E.
Campbell, H. Fitz-Patrick. rt. hn. J. W.
Candlish, J. Fletcher, I.
Cardwell, rt. hon. E. Fordyce, W. D.
Carnegie, hon. C. Forster, C.
Carter, Mr. Alderman Forster, rt. hon. W. E.
Cartwright, W. C. Fortescue, rt. hon. C. P.
Castlerosse, Viscount Fothergill, R.
Cave, T. Fowler, W.
Cavendish, Lord F. C. French, rt. hon. Col.
Gavin, Major M'Combie, W.
Gilpin, C. MacEvoy, E.
Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E. Macfie, R. A.
Gladstone, W. H. Maguire, J. F.
Gower, hon. E. F. L. Mackintosh, E. W.
Gower, Lord R. M'Lagan, P.
Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. M'Laren, D.
Gourley, E. T. M'Mahon, P.
Graham, W. Maitland, Sir A.C. R.G.
Gray, Sir J. Magniac, C.
Gregory, W. H. Marling, S. S.
Greville, Captain Martin, P. W.
Greville-Nugent, Col. Matheson, A.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G. Matthews, H.
Grieve, J. J. Miall, E.
Grosvenor, Capt. R. W. Milbank, F. A.
Grosvenor, Earl Miller, J.
Grove, T. F. Milton, Viscount
Gurney, rt. hon. R. Mitchell, T. A.
Hadfield, G. Moncreiff, rt. hon. J.
Hamilton, E. W. T. Monk, C. J.
Hamilton, J. G. C. Monsell, rt. hon. W.
Hanmer, Sir J. Moore, C.
Harcourt, W.G.G.V.V. Moore, G. H.
Hardcastle, J. A. Morgan, G. O.
Harris, J. D. Morley, S.
Hartington, Marquess of Morrison, W.
Haviland-Burke, E. Mundella, A. J.
Hay, Lord J. Muntz, P. H.
Headlam, rt. hon. T. E. Murphy, N. D.
Henderson, J. Nicholson, W.
Henley, Lord Nicol, J. D.
Heygate, Sir F. W. Norwood, C. M.
Hibbert, J. T. O'Brien, Sir P.
Hoare, Sir H. A. O'Conor, D. M.
Hodgkinson, G. O'Conor Don, The
Holms, J. O'Donoghue, The
Howard, hon. C. W. G. Ogilvy, Sir J.
Howard, J. O'Loghlen, rt. hon. Sir C. M.
Hughes, W. B.
Hurst, R. H. Onslow, G.
Hutt, rt. hon. Sir W. O'Reilly, M. W.
Jardine, R. O'Reilly-Dease, M.
Jessel, G. Otway, A. J.
Johnston, A. Palmer, J. H.
Johnstone, Sir H. Parker, C. S.
Kavanagh, A. MacM. Parry, L. Jones-
King, hon. P. J. L. Pease, J. W.
Kinglake, J. A. Peel, A. W.
Kingscote, Colonel Pelham, Lord
Kinnaird, hon. A. F. Philips, R. N.
Kirk, W. Pim, J.
Knatchbull - Hugessen, E. H. Platt, J.
Playfair, L.
Layard, rt. hon. A. H. Plimsoll, S.
Lambert, N. G. Pollard-Urquhart, W.
Lancaster, J. Portman, hon. W. H. B.
Lawrence, J. C. Potter, E.
Lawrence, W. Potter, T. B.
Lawson, Sir W. Power, J. T.
Lea, T. Ramsden, Sir J. W.
Leatham, E. A. Rathbone, W.
Lee, W. Reed, C.
Lefevre, G. J. S. Richard, H.
Lewis, J. D. Robertson, D.
Lloyd, Sir T. D. Roden, W. S.
Locke, J. Rothschild, Brn. L. N. de
Lowe, rt. hon. R. Rothschild, Brn. M. A. de
Lusk, A. Rothschild, X. M. de
Lyttelton, hon. C. G. Russell, A.
M'Arthur, W. Russell, H.
M'Clean, J. R. Rylands, P.
M'Clure, T. St. Aubyn, J.
St. Lawrence, Viscount Trevelyan, G. O.
Salomons, Mr. Ald. Vandeleur, Colonel
Samuda, J. D'A. Verney, Sir H.
Samuelson, B. Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.
Sartoris, E. J. Vivian, A. P.
Scott, Sir W. Vivian, Capt. hn. J. C. W.
Shaw, R. Vivian. H. H.
Shaw, W. Walter, J.
Sheridan, H. B. 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, T. E. Whatman, J.
Stacpoole, W. White, hon. Capt. C.
Stanley, hon. W. O. Whitworth, T.
Stansfeld, rt. hon. J. Williams, W.
Stapleton, J. Williamson, Sir H.
Stepney, Colonel Williams, E. W. B.
Stevenson, J. C. Wingfield, Sir C.
Stone, W. H. Winterbotham, H. S. P.
Sullivan, rt. hon. E. Woods, H.
Sykes, Colonel W. H. Wyndham, hon. P.
Synan, E. J. Young, A. W.
Talbot, C. R. M.
Taylor, P. A. TELLERS.
Tollemache, hon. F. J. Glyn, G. G.
Torrens, R. R. Adam, W. P.
Tracy, hon. C. R. D. H
NOES.
Adderley, rt. hn. C. B. 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. Dalrymple, C.
Assheton, R. Damer, Capt. Dawson-
Bagge, Sir W. De Grey, hon. T.
Bailey, Sir J. R. Denison, C. B.
Ball, J. T. Dick, F.
Baring, T. Dimsdale, R.
Barrington, Viscount Disraeli, rt. hon. B.
Barrow, W. H. Duncombe, hon. Col.
Barttelot, Colonel Du Pre, C. G.
Bateson, Sir T. Dyke, W. H.
Bathurst, A. A. Eastwick, E. B.
Beach, Sir M. H. Eaton, H. W.
Beach, W. W. B. Egerton, E. C.
Bective, Earl of Egerton, Sir P. G.
Bentinck, G. C. Egerton, hon. W.
Benyon, R. Elliot, G.
Booth, Sir R. G. Ewing, A. O.
Bourke, hon. R. Feilden, H. M.
Bright, R. Fellowes, E.
Brise, Colonel R. Fielden, J.
Broadley, W. H. H. Floyer, J.
Brodrick, hon. W. Foljambe, F. J. S.
Bruce, Sir H. H. Forde, Colonel
Buckley, Sir E. Forester, rt. hon. Gen.
Burrell, Sir P. Fowler, R. N.
Cameron, D. Galway, Viscount
Cartwright, F. Gallwey, Sir W. P.
Cave, right hon. S. Garlies, Lord
Charley, W. T. Gilpin, Colonel
Child, Sir S. Goldney, G.
Clive, Col. hon. G. W. Gooch, Sir D.
Clowes, S. W. Gore, J. R. O.
Cole, Col. hon. H. A. Gore, W. R. O.
Conolly, T. Graves, S. R.
Corbett, Colonel Greaves, E.
Corrance, F. S. Greene, E.
Gregory, G. B. North, Colonel
Guest, A. E. Northcote, right hon. Sir S. H.
Hambro, C.
Hamilton, Lord C. Paget, R. H.
Hamilton, Lord G. Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J.
Hamilton, I. T. Parker, Major W.
Hamilton, Marquess of Peek, H. W.
Hardy, rt. hon. G. Pell, A.
Hardy, J. Powell, W.
Hardy, J. S. Raikes, H. C.
Hay, Sir J. C. D. Read, C. S.
Henley, rt. hon. J. W. Ridley, M. W.
Henniker-Major, hon. J. M. Round, J.
Royston, Viscount
Herbert, rt. hn. Gen. P. Russell, Sir W.
Hermon, E. Sandon, Viscount
Hervey, Lord A. H. C. Saunderson, E.
Hesketh, Sir T. G. Shirley, S. E.
Hick, J. Sidebottom, J.
Hoare, P. M. Simonds, W. B.
Holford, R. S. Smith, A.
Holmesdale, Viscount Smith, F. C.
Holt, J. M. Smith, R.
Hood, Captain hon. A. W. A. N. Smith, S. G.
Smith, W. H.
Hornby, E. K. Stanley, Lord
Hunt, right hn. G. W. Starkie, J. P. C.
Ingram, H. F. M. Stronge, Sir J. M.
Jackson, R. W. Sturt, H. G.
Jones, J. Sykes, C.
Kekewich, S. T. Talbot, J. G.
Keown, W. Taylor, rt. hon. Col.
Knox, hon. Colonel S. Tipping, W.
Laird, J. Tollemache, J.
Langton, W. H. P. G. Turner, C.
Legh, W. J. Tumor, E.
Lennox, Lord H. G. Vance, J.
Liddell, hon. H. G. Verner, E. W.
Lindsay, hon. Col. C. Verner, W.
Lindsay, Col. R. L. Walker, Major G. G.
Lopes, H. C. Walpole, hon. F.
Lopes, Sir M. Walpole, rt. hon. S. H.
Lowther, J. Walsh, hon. A.
Lowther, W. Waterhouse, S.
Malcolm, J. W. Welby, W. E.
Manners, Lord G. J. Wethered, T. O.
Manners, rt. hon. Ld. J. Whalley, G. H.
March, Earl of Wheelhouse, W. S. J.
Mellor, T. W. Whitmore, H.
Meyrick, T. Williams, C. H.
Milles, hon. G. W. Williams, F. M.
Mills, C. H. Wilmot, H.
Mitford, W. T. Winn, R.
Morgan, C. O. Wise, H. C.
Mowbray, rt. hn. J. R.
Neville-Grenville, R. TELLERS.
Newdegate, C. N. Jenkinson, Sir G. S.
Newport, Viscount Elphinstone, Sir J.D.H.
Noel, Hon. G. J.
MR. GLADSTONE

then moved in line 16, after "paid." insert "during the financial year ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine."

Agreed to.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

rose to explain his reasons for moving the Amendment of which he had given no- tice. There were two questions which the Committee ought to carefully consider before consenting to grant the capital sum proposed to be given to the Trustees of the College of Maynooth under this clause as it at present stood. The first was whether the Liberal party had not pledged themselves at the last election not to bestow anything in the shape of an endowment on Maynooth; and the second was whether the arrangement proposed by the Government would have the effect of giving a permanent endowment to that institution. In his opinion everybody who had watched the course of events during last Session and the General Election in the autumn must admit that the Liberal party were pledged not to bestow anything on Maynooth College in the shape of an endowment. The 4th Resolution moved last year was perfectly explicit on this point, and so were the declarations made by the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government, during his canvass in Lancashire, while the speeches delivered at the elections proved that the great bulk of the Liberal Members were pledged not to grant an endowment to any religious community in Ireland. As to the second point he would ask what the right hon. Gentleman said in support of the arrangement proposed by the Bill respecting Maynooth. As yet the right hon. Gentleman had not fully explained himself on this point; but had told the House on former occasions that he would defer his explanation till the proper time—namely, when this clause came on for discussion. He might, however, gather, from certain words pronounced by the right hon. Gentleman on two occasions during the progress of the measure, some idea as to the manner in which he intended to defend the proposal of the Government respecting the College of Maynooth. On the second reading of the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a remark from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy), that under the new arrangements Maynooth would be unduly favoured, said that, looking to the large sums of money that were to be given to the Bishops and others of the Established Church, and looking to the fact that the great majority of the people of Ireland belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, that he did not think it would be easy to persuade the Committee when they came to this clause to believe that Maynooth was unduly favoured in receiving; between £800,000 and £400,000. This would have been a very suitable argument if the Government had adopted the policy of levelling up; but nothing could be more dear and indisputable than that, at the last election, a levelling-up policy was repudiated by the Liberal party. The policy adopted by that party was to discontinue State assistance to all the religious persuasions of Ireland and to respect life interests only. When the Motion for going into Committee on this Bill that day six months was moved by the hem. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) he (Mr. Aytoun) made some remarks upon the Bill, when the Prime Minister said that his (Mr. Aytoun's) figures could not in his opinion be sustained by argument. He would now admit that those figures were not perfectly correct; but he had rather under-stated his case than otherwise. The grant to Maynooth, he then said, might be divided into two portions. The first was a sum of £6,000 per annum for the salaries, commons, allowance, and maintenance of the Professors, and if they took fourteen years' purchase for the commutation of life pensions there was a sum by way of compensation for these Professors of £84,000. The Bill, however, proposed that the sum granted for the students as well as the Professors should be multiplied by fourteen years' purchase, and that the sum of £364,000 should be handed over to the Trustees of the College. The students, however, had no life interests. All that they were entitled to ask was that they should not suffer by the Bill, and that no one should be worse off after it passed than before. All that the Legislature was bound to do for these students was to provide that their education should be completed. When he laid these figures before the House he said that the sum devoted to the students was £20,000. He supposed eight years to be the period of their remaining at the College, and, taking the mean time of those now at the College, and multiplying this sum by four, he estimated the sum of £80,000 as sufficient to complete the education of the students now at the College. He believed that the students only remained seven years at the College, so that he had in this respect rather under-stated his case, and less than £80,000 would provide for them. A sum of upwards of £26,000 was paid out of the Consolidated Fund to the Trustees of Maynooth, but they had been empowered to borrow a sum of £18,700 on the security of the revenues they received from the Consolidated Fund, and the trustees were now paying £1,200 a year as a debt, being the interest of this borrowed money. This sum was to be deducted from the sum paid for the maintenance of the professors and students, which reduced the sum to £20,000 a year. Consequently the figures he stated on a previous occasion were not sufficiently favourable to the position which he endeavoured to support. Another point was that the money was to be handed over to the Trustees of the College of Maynooth unconditionally. This was a most objectionable feature of the clause. The clause relative to the Professors of the Presbyterian College had been deferred with a view to placing them on the same footing of compensation as the College of Maynooth, but in all other cases the Bill commuted the compensation to life payments. The right hon. Gentleman moved at the end of the 39th clause to add the words—"save as respects the personal interests." He inquired the meaning of this Amendment, and was told by the Attorney General for Ireland that it reserved to the Professors the rights they had under the Maynooth Act, but he afterwards added that they had no rights under that Maynooth Act. The reply brought out the fact that the rights of these per- sons were not secured under the Bill as it at present stood. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire introduced an Amendment of a similar character relative to the Established Church, and proposed that fourteen years' purchase of the incomes of the Bishops, incumbents, &c, should be handed over to the Church Body, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government showed most clearly and conclusively that there were overwhelming reasons against that system of compensation; because, he said, that by handing over the money to the Church Body for the purpose of paying annuities to the incumbents of the present Church Establishment a pressure would be put upon them to commute the life interests, and they would not be in such a secure and independent position as if their life interest had been provided for in the Bill; and farther, that to give them the same security as they had at present-would amount to a permanent Parliamentary grant. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say, in the first place, that he objected that the interests of individuals might not be sufficiently secured; but he added that it might not be fair to the public that some persons might get too much. Some of them were old men, and fourteen years' purchase was too much. The right, hon. Gentleman's conclusion was that the fair way of compensation for revenues for life was to give revenues for life. But if that argument were good in one case,—and it certainly appeared to be most clear and convincing—its force was over-whelming in the other case also. They ought, therefore, to compensate persons in the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth in exactly the same way in which compensation was given to incumbents in the Established Church and to ministers in the Presbyterian Church, and in the same way, also, in which it was originally proposed to give compensation to Professors of the Presbyterian College of Belfast. He had little more to say. The hon. Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don) who, if he mistook not, was one of the Trustees of the College of Maynooth, had endeavoured to justify the course, which the Government proposed to adopt, by referring to the inconvenience which would be entailed upon the students of the College. There was an hon. Member sitting near him, the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), who had more than once endeavoured to do away with distinctions existing between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Trinity College, Dublin, and he had no doubt that the hon. Member would again bring forward his Motion, and that it would be carried. But those distinctions, he believed, related simply to Fellowships, and Trinity College could not be called a theological College, for young men of all creeds were brought up in it together. Maynooth, on the other hand, according to the hon. Member for Roscommon, was to be put an end to, and the education of the students, he contended, would have to be completed at an expense three times as great as that for which it might have been concluded. The College however, was not about to come to an end; even if the Motion proposed by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), repealing the incorporating clauses, had been adopted, the institution would have remained in the hands of the Trustees by whom it might be carried on. But, as that Motion had been defeated, Maynooth still remained a corporation as secure in its position as any other University in the country. And, therefore, the argument about these students having to receive their education elsewhere, and to seek it at great expense, scattered far and wide over the country, and unable to obtain it from the same Professors, fell to the ground. From what he had stated it was plain, he thought, that the College of Maynooth was unduly favoured. It was said that this was a mere question of detail, a mere matter of figures; but it was possible so to handle the details of a Bill as to change its principle, and his contention was that compensation was here given to such an extent as to constitute an annual endowment. Figures had been placed before him showing that out of the compensation proposed to be given it would be possible to compensate the Professors, to complete the education of the students, and still to retain a sum exceeding £200,000 as a permanent endowment: £26,000 was the amount now paid from the Consolidated Fund, and, taking the amount of compensation proposed in relation to that at £364,000, at the rate of interest at which it had been stated that money was to be borrowed, this would yield an annual amount of £18,000, or in other words, a sum which, with very slight exertion, would enable the College to be maintained in almost undiminished efficiency. The way in which persons holding the views he ventured to advocate with regard to Maynooth were spoken of was really curious. They were always supposed to be exceedingly bigoted. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was good enough to say that certain Members on his own side of the House who differed from him were "honest men," but, of course, they were very bigoted. [Mr. BRIGHT: I did not say bigoted.] No, but that was the fair presumption from the argument. Persons who entertained the view which he was endeavouring to put forward were spoken of as if they were doing something ex- tremely wrong; as if they were well-meaning, but very prejudiced people, whom one could only feel sorry for, and endeavour to look upon in a charitable manner. He entirely repudiated many of the sentiments which were attributed to him. The right hon. Member for North Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt), said he did not like to hear allusions to what was done in Italy, Spain, and other countries. But there was a wide interval, he maintained, between discussing or imitating what was done in those nations, and bestowing, in this country, an exceptional favour upon one religious body. In one place men were compelled to walk out of the limits of the town before reaching the chapel of their own persuasion: that he did not complain of; but in Portugal a man was banished for he knew not how main years, and that he did complain of. It was not banishment, it was not imitation of any objectionable practices abroad, if we simply refused to give to Roman Catholics a particular sum of money which they had no right to ask for. A favourite argument with some hon. Members was to this effect—"The thing is very small; better pass it over and give it, and we shall hear no more about it." He thought, on the contrary, the time was arriving when they would hear a great deal more of these demands. What had been the conduct of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland with regard to education? Everybody knew that they had used their endeavours, and with very considerable success, to put an end to that measure of Sir Robert Peel for the establishment of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, which we regarded as one of the most beneficial that had been passed for Ireland during a quarter of a century he admitted that the Roman Catholic clergy had a perfect right to take an interest in politics; but they united and banded themselves together in such a way as to exercise formidable political influence, and were constantly making demands upon the Government, not only upon Irish, but upon English questions, such as the Government found it very difficult to resist. Therefore he urged the Committee to make a stand at once, and to refuse to listen to the argument—the worst and weakest that had ever been made in support of the Government proposal—that by present concession we should be freeing ourselves from future demands. He trusted that the Committee would not be induced, by any consideration of present convenience, to pass the clause in its present shape, but that after due consideration they would adopt the Amendment which he had placed on the Paper.

Amendment proposed, In line 18, after the word "behalf," to leave out the words "by payment of the capital sum hereinafter mentioned to the trustees of the said College," in order to insert the words "the Commissioners shall, as soon as may be after the passing of this Act, ascertain and declare by order the amount of yearly income of the persons who shall, at the date of the passing of this Act, be the president, vice president, officers, and professors of the College of Maynooth in respect of salaries and other like payments, and also the average yearly value of all advantages and profits enjoyed by them respectively by virtue of their appointments; and from ad after the discontinuance of the payment of the annual sums heretofore paid to the trustees of the College of Maynooth, in pursuance of the fourth section of the said Act of the eighth and ninth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, the Commissioners shall pay to each of such persons as aforesaid yearly, so long as he lives and continues to perform the duties of his office, a sure equal to the amount of such yearly income, and to the average yearly value of such advantages and profits so received and enjoyed by him as aforesaid; and furthermore, the Commissioners shall, as soon as may be after the passing of this Act, ascertain and declare by order the names and number of the persons who shall, at the date of the passing of this Act, be students in the College of Maynooth, and the yearly sum payable to the trustees of the College of Maynooth in respect of each such student, in pursuance of the fifth, sixth, and seventh sections of the said Act of the eighth and ninth years of the reign of Her present Majesty; and from and after the discontinuance of the payment of the annual sums heretofore paid to the said trustees, in pursuance of the last mentioned sections of the said Act, the Commissioners shall pay to the said trustees yearly so long as each such student shall continue, in accordance with the regulations which shall be in force at the date of the passing of this Act, to be a student in the said College, a sum equal to the yearly sum which would have been payable to them in respect of such student, if the last-mentioned Act had not been repealed."—(Mr. Sinclair Aytoun.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Gentleman was in Order in moving his Amendment; but he ought to explain the difference between the Amendment on the Paper and that which he had really moved.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

said, he had added to the Amendment printed in the Votes, "A sum equal to the yearly sum which would have been payable to them in respect of such student, if the last-mentioned Act had not been repealed."

MR. PERCY WYNDHAM

said, he had been unable to vote for the last Amendment, because it would have tended to increase the ill-gotten gains of the tithe-owners; but the Committee had now reached a point where the principles on which the Bill had hitherto been supported appeared to have been quite abandoned, and we were called upon to proceed on different grounds and with, apparently different objects in view. As far as the Protestant Church was concerned, the right hon. Gentleman appeared to have imported the Radical principle into ecclesiastical arrangements, a principle with which the Irish people, who were the most religious people in Europe, had not the slightest sympathy. Accordingly, directly the Roman Catholic Church came to be dealt with, to which Church the majority of the Irish people belonged, that principle was abandoned, and a new principle was introduced. As far as concerned the Protestant Church, the Bill was a Bill which took away all Church endowments, which cut away all existing aid, which rendered the Church entirely dependent upon voluntary contributions, which ignored all right of the Church to compensation, but which was careful of individual interests. But when the Roman Catholic Church came to be dealt with a totally opposite principle was adopted, and the Bill became one which, instead of cutting off existing aid, made a precarious aid permanent, and which thrust aside individual interests in favour of those of the Roman Catholic Church as a body. It was only a day or two since the Committee refused to grant any funds for the repair of twelve monumental churches belonging to the Irish Church, and yet it was now proposed to grant funds for the repair of Maynooth College. The Attorney General for Ireland had assured the Committee the other night that if any hitch occurred respecting the properly to be enjoyed by the Disestablished Church, it would be removed by subsequent legislation. That was not an agreeable prospect certainly; but it would not surprise anybody if some confusion were to arise in respect of property the title to which arose out of the recent confiscation. The small scruple that that House had shown in dealing with ecclesiastical property did not tell much in favour of the future security of the property of the Disestablished Church if Parliament was to have any control over it. The utmost caution had, however, been observed in placing the property of Maynooth safely out of harm's way, and it would be impossible for Parliament to touch it at any subsequent period. In arguing against the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire to treat the Protestant Church on the same footing as the Roman Catholic Church, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland expressed a fear that such a course might involve the sacrifice of individual interests. In considering this point, he had looked into the Maynooth Act, and he found that there was nothing in that Act that prevented, the Trustees of that College applying a portion of the funds entrusted to them in behalf of the Roman Catholic Church instead of for the support of the College. It might be said that even if such a result were possible it was not probable that it would occur. But if that were the case, why could not the Protestant Church be treated with equal confidence? They had been told over and over again that Maynooth, was an educational, and not a religious establishment; but, in truth, both the Church of Ireland and Maynooth College were purely ecclesiastical establishments, the real and only distinction between the Irish Protestant Church and that College was that while the former was an institution for the benefit and instruction of the laity, the latter was an institution for the training of priests. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) urged as a reason for the course he took with regard to Maynooth College, that when he came to deal with Trinity College he would have to treat it in the same spirit of liberality, but there was no analogy between the case of Trinity College and that of Maynooth. Trinity College was open to every layman; and before the priests took up the unfortunate attitude they had assumed of late years, a great number of the Catholic laity did receive their education in that College, where there was not the slightest interference with their religion. When in legislating they refused to grant to one community what, under the same conditions they granted to another, a proposal such as the one the Government now made in the case of Maynooth became ipso facto an act of injustice. He should, therefore, vote with the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun). With many other Members on the Opposition side of the House, he believed that this Bill would become law; but, if it did not treat the Protestants with the same liberality as it treated the Roman Catholics, or, if it did not treat the Roman Catholics with the same vigour as it treated the Protestants, he believed it would fail to give ultimate satisfaction to any individual in the British Empire capable of forming an unbiassed opinion.

MR. DOWNING

* Sir, since this Bill was introduced, I have not addressed a single word to the House; as a Catholic Member I considered it, if not a necessary, at least a prudent, course to remain silent and leave the discussion of the great principles of the Bill—disendowment and disestablishment—to the Episcopalian and Nonconformist Members of the House: but those principles having been affirmed, I feel not only at liberty but bound to take part in the discussion raised by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Sinclair Aytoun). Sir, the Amendment is one that is difficult to comprehend, but so far as it is intelligible the Committee will see that it is entirely inconsistent with the vote of last evening, taken on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), the ill-requited champion of Protestantism. That significant majority of 128 decided that the State should recognize Maynooth College as a distinct corporate body—the Motion of the hon. Member being that it should be dissolved. In that division it was somewhat remarkable that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Disraeli) went into the same Lobby with that hon. Member, while the hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin walked out of the House when the division bell rang, and did not vote, much to his credit, and not inconsistent with that sense of justice and honour which has marked his career through life. I cannot avoid the expression of surprise at the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) when I remember that but recently that right hon. Gentleman led the country to believe that he was prepared to give a charter to the Catholic University. A very considerable number of the Roman Catholics of this kingdom have for many years been deceived in believing that the right hon. Gentleman and his followers were more likely to act justly towards the general body than the Leaders of the Liberal party. I was not one of the deceived; and I apprehend that, after the discussions that have taken place on the clause now before the Committee, and the offensive and insulting language which has come from so many hon. Members on the other side of the House, few, if any, will long remain under the deception. The Amendment goes to deprive Maynooth of a capital sum, and instead thereof that the Church Commissioners should pay to the president and officers of the College during their lives, and so long as they should continue to perform the duties of their offices sums equal to the amount of their present yearly incomes, and a yearly sum in respect of each student so long as he shall continue in accordance with the regulations of the College. My hon. Friend the Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don) has already shown that the Church Commissioners could have no control or power over the officers, and that the machinery contemplated could not work. I assume that the hon. Mover of the Amendment only sought a further opportunity of showing his intolerant feelings towards the Roman Catholic body. I deny that there is any exceptional legislation in the Bill with reference to Maynooth. Identity of procedure was impossible, the nature of the several cases rendered diversity of arrangement inevitable; and this is an answer to those who have asked why we should not compensate each individual Professor and student instead of placing a capital sum in the hands of the Trustees of the College, and it is also an answer to the Amendment. I was utterly amazed at the observation which fell from the last speaker in stating that on the death of the incumbents nothing would be left to the Protestant Church. For what is the fact?—this, that if those who are supposed to take so deep and sincere an interest in the future welfare of their Church desire it, they may, by capitalizing their incomes, realize a gross sum of about £5,000,000, which, if invested, would realize an annual income of £225,000 a year, to which add a sum of £3,500,000 to compensate for other vested interests; and this is the Church which we have been told is about being cut from her ancient and sacred moorings and floated on a tempestuous ocean, without rudder or provisions. The Committee have seen with what anxiety and care all those connected with the Protestant Church have put forward their claims for an increase to the compensation which the Bill contemplated—and I here express my satisfaction that the appeal of a deserving class, the curates, has been favourably considered, and that while, as the Bill originally stood, strict justice was accorded, as it now stands generosity has been conferred. I can appeal to hon. Members on the other side and to Members of the Government whether I did not, before a single Amendment was put on the Paper, state my conviction as a Roman Catholic Member that the line of generosity adopted by the Government in reference to the curates would have my cordial support. And now let mo ask what are the feelings with reference to Maynooth? As expressed by hon. Members on the other side, they are those of intolerance, of bigotry, and ingratitude. The hon. Baronet the Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson) and the hon. and learned Member for Salford (Mr. Charley)—distinguished by the fact of his being the only Member of this House who attended the Orange demonstration at Exeter Hall—could not conscientiously grant any aid for the education of priests to teach a false doctrine—that of Popery; language that may have been received with applause some centimes ago—nay, some half-century, when no Roman Catholic could sit in this House to repel unjust accusations. Those hon. Members appear not to have read Irish history, or if they have, with little profit. Are they not aware that for seventy-four years the State has contributed to the education of, not the entire of the Catholic priesthood of Ireland, but above two-thirds of them, the other one-third receiving their education outside the walls of Maynooth. Are they not aware that in 1795 an exclusively Irish Protestant Parliament voted a sum of £8,000 a year for that purpose; that in that Parliament the Irish Protestant Prelates sat, and that there was not a dissentient voice in either House? That Vote is adopted by the United Parliament by increasing the grant to £9,200 in the year 1808, and again, in 1813, the same Parliament made a grant of £700 a year in aid of what is known as the Dunboyne Establishment. In 1845, Sir Robert Peel, whose conduct and opinions we may reasonably hope would influence the opinions of Members of this House on either side, introduced the Bill by which the present grant of £26,360 a year was secured to Maynooth. In introducing that Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said there were three courses open for adoption, Firstly, to continue the then present system without alteration; secondly, to discontinue the grant altogether, and after providing for existing interests to have no connection between Government and Maynooth; and thirdly, to adopt, in a friendly and generous spirit, the institution provided for the education of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Well, that Parliament adopted the third course by the large majority of 147; and yet the intolerance of the Opposition, who value so highly the right of private judgment, consider it in the nineteenth century a violation of principle to provide instruction for the priesthood of the millions of the Irish people. Those pious and singularly gifted individuals are influenced by scruples not felt by George III., by Camden, Pitt, Percival, and Peel. In discussing that Bill, Sir Robert Peel used language so applicable to the very point we are now discussing, that I ask the particular attention of the Committee for a moment. He said—in reference to the second course which he had suggested— If this were a mere pecuniary engagement, from which you could not, without absolute injustice, stand released, you might possibly avoid the annual performance of it, by calculating the value of the annuity, converting it into capital, paying the amount to the Trustees of the College, and notifying to them that on religious grounds you absolved yourselves from all further connection with this institution."—[3 Hansard, lxxix, 25.] Those words were almost prophetic— the time has arrived when you are about to absolve yourselves from all connection with Maynooth; and that great man laid down for you the mode of compensation—namely, to capitalize the annuity of £26,300, "and hand it over. To whom? Not to individuals, not to Commissioners, but to the Trustees of the College. Now let me ask the Committee to consider with what funds we are dealing; funds over which it is admitted by all sides that the State has control, and is placed at their disposal. They are funds and only a portion of funds which originally belonged to Roman Catholics, when no other creed was known in this kingdom. These funds were contributed by the Catholic people, tracts of land were consecrated by their proprietors to religions institutions, centuries before the system of tithes was introduced into Ireland. Of those funds they were plundered, their altars overturned, their Bishops and their priests tortured, incarcerated, banished, or put to death because they would not abandon that faith in which they believed, and in which they were consecrated and ordained to teach and propagate. By inhuman laws instruction was forbidden to the Catholic laity, and yet, in that dark page of Ireland's history, that faith was preserved pure and untainted by the heroic fortitude of its Prelates and its priests. And what are you now discussing for the last two nights? This, whether of £16,000,000 of which the people of Ireland were thus robbed, you will give in aid of the future instruction of their priesthood the paltry sum of £360,000, which, if invested at 5 per cent, would give an annual income of £8,360 loss than they are at present receiving from the Consolidated Fund. Then how does the case stand? The Catholics, 78 per cent of the population, will receive £18,000 a year; the Presbyterians, who are 0 per cent of the population, will receive, besides their College and Widows' Fund, £38,500 a year; while the Episcopalians, 11 per cent of the population, will receive—if they do wish —an annual sum of £225,000, irrespective of a sum of £3,500,000:—and this is what hon. Members on the other side call exceptional legislation in favour of Catholics. I will not weary the House in refuting the figures of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, who would give the magnificent sum of £120,000, but I should feel no difficulty in proving that, according to the tables and strict actuarial calculation, Maynooth should receive the sum of £426,000. But Conservative Members are fond of precedents—especially when they are hoary and venerable. The historian, Hallam, has been frequently quoted during these debates, and he was not a historian favourable to the Catholics. He says, the King (Henry VIII.) was reported to have talked of cutting off the heads of refractory Commoners. A single suspicion, a single cloud of wayward humour, was sufficient to send the proudest Peer to the block. Firstly, he seized the revenues of the monasteries (in England) under £200 a year, to the number of 376, the moveables of which alone were reckoned worth £100,000. In 1540, he seized upon the revenues of the larger monasteries, which poured in an instant such a torrent of wealth on the Crown as has not been equalled in any country. This," the historian says, "was in fact not merely to wound the people's strongest impressions of religion, but to deprive the indigent in many places of succour, and the better rank of hospitable reception. This indeed was a revolution; and how did your early Protestant Reformers treat the rightful owners of all this property? Hallam says historians assert that the monks were turned adrift with a small sum of money, but he states that the superiors received pensions varying from £266 to £6, and in a note he gives the amount thus — The priors of cells generally received £13; a few whose services merited distinction received £20; others £6, £4, or £2. The pensions to nuns averaged £4. He adds— Those were, however, voluntary gifts on the part of the Crown, for the Parliament, which dissolved the monastic foundations, while it took abundant care to preserve any rights of property which private persons might enjoy over the estates thus escheated to the Crown, vouchsafed not a word towards securing the slightest compensation to the dispossessed owners." — [Constitutional History, c. 2.] This is, no doubt, a precedent that you on the Opposition Benches would wish to follow; and if you could and did not give a shilling to Maynooth, the Catholics of Ireland would now, as in the days of persecution; animated by the same spirit and the same faith, raise ample funds to educate their pastors, who, in the words of Sir Robert Peel— Do what you will—pass this measure or refuse it, the Catholic priests will continue to be the spiritual guides and religious instructors of millions of your countrymen. But the same unbroken majority which has hitherto so triumphantly advanced this Bill through Committee will reject the Amendment now before the House. I rejoice to see the liberal and generous spirit which animates this Parliament. I congratulate the country at large on the cordial union between English, Scotch, and Irish Liberal representatives; and, as an Irish Roman Catholic Member, I frankly tender to the English and Scotch Members the thanks of the Irish Roman Catholics for the sense of justice and liberality which they have throughout the discussion on this Bill manifested. We are told, that let this Bill be carried, and not only will the Constitution be sapped, but the Throne overturned. The same has been predicted time after time, and yet the Constitution is safe and unimpaired; pass this Bill, and the Throne will be safer, for you will have done much to conciliate the Irish people, to reconcile them to British rule, and to unite with the people of the United Kingdom in feelings of friendship and brotherhood.

MAJOR WALKER

said, he felt bound to support the Amendment. In common with a numerous and intelligent portion of his countrymen, he believed that the grant to Maynooth was an error in theory, and had been a failure in practice; and while he would not have interrupted the existing truce, now that it was interrupted and the compact broken, he did not feel bound to support the perpetuation of an arrangement reluctantly tolerated, and made under very exceptional circumstances, which had now ceased to exist. He looked upon the proposals of the Government for giving large compensation for life interests as constituting a practical endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, and he therefore felt bound to vote for the Amendment.

MR. WHALLEY

said, nothing could be clearer than that the Amendment carried out the views the Prime Minister entertained when he spoke of "due regard being paid to personal interests." The question of Maynooth or no Maynooth having been decided, the question that remained was what was to be done with the money. The Trustees might dismiss the Professors and the students; and he was told that it was their intention to divest their operations of the obnoxious name of Maynooth, and to establish diocesan Colleges in different parts of the country. Despite the Resolution of last Session, personal interests were ignored, and a grant was to be made to the Trustees of Maynooth College—Bishops of the Church of Rome, who from the time they got possession of this £360,000 would have no check upon them whatever, and would be perfectly at liberty to carry out the policy of Rome. He was animated by a most sincere desire to be reconciled to his Friends on that side of the House, for he had seen nothing during the debate which would encourage him to change his party or his side. Gentlemen opposite had received every encouragement at his hands to take up the Protestant question, but they had shown no disposition to do so. He had borne with perfect equanimity vituperation of all kinds, and had submitted to an assumed superiority on the part of some; but he had lived long enough to see his declarations realized. Six or seven years ago he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the nature and extent of the Fenian organization, and for one hour was not allowed to speak.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

asked the Chairman whether the hon. Member was discussing the question before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he did not see that the hon. Member was out of Order.

MR. WHALLEY

said, that what had happened in the past might happen in the future, and reminded the Committee of a memorable manifestation which gave rise to the creation of the word "Sing." The visit of the Prince of Wales had caused some persons in Ireland to invent or rather perpetrate, a song expressing in words precisely those sentiments which had been universally condemned in the Mayor of Cork. Every one remembered the contempt, ridicule, obloquy, and disparagement which he had brought upon himself by his pertinacity upon that occasion; but it was a consolation to him, in the midst of many trials, to know that if the evidence in support of his warning had been attended to at that time, many lives since sacrificed would have been saved. He therefore rose on this occasion to urge the Prime Minister to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Aytoun), even though it might be to him as a locus pœnitentiœ—to respect personal interests, but not to endow Maynooth in the abstract—Maynooth in its most offensive and perilous form. The President of the Board of Trade, who, by his extraordinary power and influence, was to a certain extent like an inflated balloon, had carried some of the people away with him, and although they could not agree with him, in his conclusions, still they were buoyed up with the hope that the right hon. Gentleman knew better than they, and that it would all come right in the end. But he warned them that the events now daily occurring in Ireland, of which the proceedings of the Mayor of Cork were a sample, were but the outward and visible sign of the inward spirit width animated the Papacy. That spirit was intensified in Ireland and England, and the common sense of the people of England had found in it a justification for every measure, penal or precautionary, taken by our ancestors against Rome. The Prime Minister, when he charged England with injustice towards the Roman Catholics, forgot the provocation Home had given, and, now that he spoke of compensation, he charged him to remember that to do other than compensate personal interests would be in direct violation of the principle of "levelling down."

MR. GLADSTONE

I am very sorry if I have offended my hon. Friend by references to former history in connection with this Bill; but the reason it is absolutely necessary to make these references from time to time will at once be observed by my hon. Friend when I point out to him that, though a very large portion of the Members of this House have admitted in terms more or less general, and some of them in terms, quite satisfactory, that we are to proceed upon principles of religious equality, yet there are certain others—and we have had specimens to-night, especially one from a Gentleman not now in his place—who declared downright that we are not to proceed upon principles of equality, and that, under no circumstances, is anything to be done on behalf of what is called "the Popish religion." Invidious names even have been used for the purpose of inflaming ancient prejudices, and when this is the case it is absolutely necessary from time to time to go back upon previous history and to entreat that at length these evil traditions may be cast aside, and that we may deal with the country on principles which become a Legislature which professes justice and freedom, and which, if it boasts of its prevailing Protestantism, boasts of it most of all for this, that the Protestant Members of this House are accustomed especially to associate Protestantism with freedom and justice. I will now endeavour to point out to the Committee the policy which we have formally pursued and the measures we have taken, in order that we may well comprehend the nature of the step we are invited to take by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy. And I cannot too soon announce that I will meet face to face, and foot to foot, the proposition of my hon. Friend, and will entirely deny on our part—and, I think, will make good my denial—that this is to be called an endowment or a re-endowment of Maynooth in any sense, except in that sense in which the conditions we have given to the Presbyterians and the Established Church are a re-endowment on an infinitely larger scale than is proposed for Maynooth. Now, our system of dealing with regard to Ireland down to this moment has been this—We have not stood in a manner too straitlaced upon a principle. Every religion has had a share of what we consider to be public or national money. But we have been very notable in the proportions in which we have dealt it out. The Protestantism of the Established Church of Ireland has been supported at the rate of £l per head; the Protestantism of the Presbyterians has been supported at the rate of 1s. 10d. per head; and the Roman Catholic religion has been supported by the special favour and bounty of the State—for I find it so described by the opponents of the Maynooth Grant, as if it were a grant of unexampled munificence—at the rate of about 1½d. per head. That is a fair exhibition of that sort of admixture of high spirit with pecuniary liberality which has thus far characterized the policy of this House. Well, Sir, intending to put an end by this Bill to this state of things, we have proceeded thus far. We have voted to the Established Church and to its members, in the shape partly of life interests, partly of private endowments, partly of property in kind—and I speak solely of the Established Church as a body—to that Church we have voted in money and money's worth property which one would probably not be far wrong in estimating at £9,000,000. We have voted to the Presbyterians everything that the Government were asked for on their behalf. We may be said to have voted for them about £750,000, or between 700,000 and £800,000; and we now come to vote a sum for Maynooth of £365,000, together with the remission of a debt of £20,000—a debt that was incurred for the purpose of maintaining buildings upon a scale that will, I apprehend, be totally needless after the disestablishment. Thus, if you come to divide the sum of between £300,000 or £400,000, and the sums voted for the Presbyterians and the Established Church rateably per head among the different religious communions, you will arrive at proportions not very different from those rather notable proportions which I have stated in the shape of figures. However, these Votes for the Presbyterians and for the; Established Church have been given, and given without invidious opposition but now that we come to the case of the Roman Catholics a vehement opposition is offered. The privilege of incorporation given to the Church under the Bill was denied to the Roman Catholics by a large minority. The appropriation of the funds for compensation from the Church property of Ireland, which had been voted to the Presbyterians of all communions and all creeds without a single word of objection from any hon. Gentleman—whatever his profession of opinions in this House—is also refused by a considerable minority, if they could sway the judgment of the House, in the case of the Roman Catholics; and though it was refused by some with the declaration that they were prepared to support a grant from the Consolidated Fund, it-was refused by others with the plain and open avowal that they declined to be bound to vote anything from the Consolidated Fund. And now, after having got rid of these two great questions, when we come to the case of the Maynooth Grant we are challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy, first, upon the question of form, and, secondly, upon the question of amount. I myself own it is very painful to me, reviewing the circumstances that I have stated, that we should be compelled thus to "chaffer" about pounds, shillings, and pence in the case of a sum of this character. I cannot enter upon the discussion without a protest. It seems to me that it would be far more creditable to the dignity and character of this Assembly, and would be more likely to promote conciliation in Ireland, if the people of Ireland saw that there was a disposition on our parts generally, instead of taking every opportunity to introduce causes for vexatious controversy, to extend to them the same large-handed liberality with which I have shown we have dealt with the other cases in this Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] I am not surprised at the gestures of the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck). The House knows, and the world knows, that the Established Church has had in this matter almost a monopoly of complaint. The Presbyterians, satisfied or dissatisfied, have stated their case with remarkable temper and moderation. On the part of the Established Church there has been one continued strain of deplorable lamentation, and nothing but charges and accusations against the majority of this House for the unequal measure that has been dealt to them. Well, we shall endeavour to see what ground there is for these imputations. In the meantime I must try to lay particularly before the Committee those grounds which I am quite satisfied will prove the justice and moderation of the proposal that we make, and will induce the Committee to give to that proposal its support. It is said that we have dealt exceptionally with the Roman Catholic body. I venture respectfully to deny that proposition. We have dealt with the Roman Catholic body in this proposal precisely upon the same principle as we have dealt with every interest of an analogous character. When we approached this question we found that we had to meet two classes of demands; the one by far the most extensive in its character was that class of demands which related to life interests alone. In the case of these life interests our course was clear. We wore compelled to deal in the first instance with the individuals. The hon. Member for Cumberland (Mr. J. Lowther) says—"Why did not you deal with the Church Body in respect of the incumbents as you deal with the trustees of Maynooth in respect of the Professors and students?" I have seen so much of the intelligence of the hon. Member in the course of the various discussions in this House that I profess myself surprised at the question, and I am quite sure he will admit that he has overlooked the cardinal and vital fact which it was our duty at once to keep in view all along. I am not speaking now of the Presbyterians, but of that great class with which we had to do—namely, the Bishops, dignitaries, and incumbents of the Established Church. Every one of them possessed a freehold, and had an absolute right to demand of us to be treated as a freeholder. And that was the reason we were compelled to deal with them as individuals, and not to look, in the first instance, at any representative body of the Church. In the same manner, with respect to the Presbyterian clergy, inasmuch as each of these was a State annuitant, the natural course for us to take was to deal with them as State annuitants in the first instance; but when we came to the College of Maynooth, and various other classes of minor interests, we not only were not under the same obligation to deal with individuals, but we found it impossible to do so. How were we to deal with individuals in the case of the Widows' Fund? Why, in the case of the Widows' Fund under the arrangements of the Bill—arrangements which yourselves have voted without one word of objection—many widows will come in and reap the advantage of our measures who are not now upon the Fund, and have no interest in the Fund whatever. My hon. Friend endeavours to persuade himself that he is dealing equally with all parties. Now, I do not for a moment doubt his sincerity; but I greatly demur to the correctness of his assumption. Why did he not provide that no widows should derive any benefit from a grant out of the "Widows' Fund, except those who are now upon it? "Why did he not provide that no Synod clerk should receive any benefit except those who now enjoy that office? Why did he not provide with regard to the Presbyterian College that nobody should take any benefit in the general expenses except those who are now in the College? I know what my hon. Friend has said. He has taken a very singular course, and has shown how deeply versed he is in the politics of the world. The hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) made a remark the other night as to a long political career rendering men astute, and he supposed such men possessed the faculty of adapting means to an end in a remarkable manner. Well, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy has proposed to put certain provisions about the Presbyterians out of the Bill, but he says—"I will take a division on Maynooth, and if I gain it, I will then move the rejection of the provisions relating to the Presbyterians." But when a principle was at issue, why did he not take the sense of the Committee? The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that he will never get these provisions out of the Bill. I submit that, in every instance where it was impossible for us to get at the life interests, we have invariably proceeded in the same manner, and we have applied the same rule to the two instances before us of educational establishments. It has been said that the sum we propose to give to Maynooth is an endowment. I maintain, on the contrary, that it is no endowment to Maynooth. It is a transition payment given to Maynooth, like the payments we give to others, to enable it to moot the circumstances of a great transition; hut it is no endowment in any other sense than the other payments proposed to be made are endowments, if you choose to apply that term to them. There are two questions to be considered—one as to the amount of the payment, and the other as to its form. As regards the form of payment, I have already said that Parliament has no relations whatever with the Professors, students, officers, or any other individuals connected with Maynooth. When Sir Robert Peel contemplated the alternative of winding up the Maynooth Grant, he supposed the only possible form of doing so would be by making a payment to the Trustees. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) says the Trustees will be wholly uncontrolled in this matter; but can he find a single lawyer in the country who will support him in this opinion? I venture to say he cannot. Every trust which now attaches to the Trustees of Maynooth, and is capable of being enforced in a court of equity, will attach to them in the disposal of this money. It will be impossible for them to realize any of the visions which possess the mind of my hon. Friend, and they will be still bound to carry out the purposes for which the original grant was made. If we have not inserted in the Bill a set of precise words stating this circumstance, it is because they have got their Charter and their instructions and limiting laws, and rules are in the Act of Parliament under which they now exist. So much for the form; and I think I have made it clear that the trustees are the persons with whom it is natural and regular for us to deal. I now wish to call attention briefly to the case of the educational establishments, and, undoubtedly, there are reasons which, it appears to me, ought to lead us to deal, in the case of a central establishment for education, with even somewhat greater liberality than we do in the case of mere and bare life interests. This establishment has been, you may say, created by State support. It is extremely difficult to carry over such an institution to the voluntary system, and the conditions ought to be made easy. The difficulty of making the transition is much greater than in the case of local congregational establishments. In the case of the local congregation, the moment a pastor dies the congregation feel their want, and have a motive for its immediate supply. But the failure, decay, weakness, and disorganization do not make themselves felt for a considerable time in an establishment which rears the pastors. This is not a reason why you should undertake the permanent maintenance of such an establishment; but it is a reason why you should deal somewhat liberally in the organization of volunteer resources. Take the case of the Free Church in Scotland—that magnificent example to which we all look when we want to learn what human energy and conscientious convictions can do. The Free Church first organized its congregations and local schools, and afterwards its Colleges. Then, what has our experience in England been with regard to State aid for primary education? You will find you can maintain the primary schools of the country by undertaking three-tenths of the expense. The total charge for these schools is £1,314,000, and you can keep these going in an efficient state under public inspection, by public grants, of £414,000, or about 30 per cent of the whole. But now let us look at those essential and vitally necessary institutions in which the teachers required for these primary schools are reared. Do we get off, in the case of a training College, with 30 per cent? No; instead of 30 we have to pay 65 per cent of the expense of maintaining these training Colleges. The total charge is £83, 000; of which £24,000 is supplied from voluntary sources, and the remainder contributed by the State. The House will observe the limits within which I use this argument. I say, we should have some con- sideration with respect to the precise measures of time and circumstance in effecting the great changes which all these institutions will have to make. But there is another reason which has, I think, been entirely overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy. Until to-night, as he is aware, his Motion was maimed in a vital member. It ended with half a sentence instead of a whole one; but on the portion which was omitted, and which was not supplied in my hon. Friend's speech, really depended the whole character of the Motion. My hon. Friend deals in the Motion with the teachers and the pupils, and I wish to point out the peculiar difficulties we have to encounter in dealing with an educational institution. My hon. Friend says that the Commissioners should pay each Professor a certain amount as long as he lives or continues to perform the duties of his office. But my hon. Friend has completely overlooked the vital distinction between the duties of a teacher in a College and those of an incumbent of a parish. Each incumbent in his parish, with his church and his congregation, forms an organic whole; and if there are 100 incumbents in a diocese, and ninety-nine of them die, still the one surviving incumbent can continue to perform the duties of his office. But how does this apply to the case of a College? In the case of a College you are contemplating a complicated machinery of many springs and many wheels, which so depend on one another that the failure of one will result in the confusion and anarchy of the whole. These young men are carried through a course of classes presided over by teachers who are no doubt competent to instruct them in the special branches they undertake, but not competent to instruct them in other branches. Death, which strikes with equal hand the huts of the poor and the proud palaces of the great, will strike with unequal hand the Professors of Maynooth, and will pick out of their ranks here and there a Professor of this or that science, and Death will do this without the smallest regard to the effect of his operations on the order and discipline of the College. The students who had attended the College the first year when they came back for the second would find that the Professor who was to have taken charge of them in the second year had died. But the Professor of the third year was alive, ready to go on with a new set of subjects, and, according to the benevolent intentions of my hon. Friend, this Professor will be absolutely stranded and unable, in the words of this Amendment, to continue to perform the duties of his office for want of students. My hon. Friend has brought forward the Motion under a complete misapprehension of the case of educational establishments. When the subject is closely inspected, it will be found that there is no equitable or rational way of dealing with an educational institution, except by a lump sum fairly calculated—the managers and superintendents of the institution being left free to apply the money as they best can, subject to the obligations of the law in respect to the purposes for which the institution was founded. No doubt the case of Maynooth was the same as all other Colleges which are sufficient for their work, and within these Colleges there is a list of youths in order of seniority waiting for admission. These youths are persons of a class that it would be cruel to trifle with. The parents have made their applications to the authorities of the College, and they have an approximate title to enter, founded upon an Act of Parliament of which they had no reason to anticipate a repeal. They are the sons of small farmers and tradesmen in Ireland. Will you undertake to say that they have not the same title to the consideration of this House as Professors and assistant Professors, every one of whose titles we have recognized and without a word of objection? So much for the general considerations applicable to this case. Now for the question of amount. I confess that I do not clearly understand the total of figures at which my hon. Friend has arrived. I do not refer to that point with the view of casting any blame upon my hon. Friend, because, if his figures were not clear, it was possibly because he was unable to make them so. He mentioned two sums of £80,000 each, but afterwards said that was too much. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough said that £140,000 would satisfy these personal interests. I have stated fairly to the Committee that, in our opinion, educational establishments ought to be dealt, with on the same general principles, as nearly as the nature of the case admits, but with a leaning to tenderness in the application of those principles, on account of the difficulties inherent in the nature of the case. Now, as to the amount, I will undertake to show that my hon. Friends are entirely wrong; that they wholly misconceive the nature of the figures with which they are dealing; and that, if they were to procure the adoption of their principle, the sum they would save would be a paltry and miserable sum of which they had no conception. My hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy has proposed a Motion by which I have not the least doubt he intends to provide for personal interests. I beg to tell him that his Motion does not provide for personal interests—giving the narrowest construction he likes to to that term. In the first part, where he does provide for them, he has mistaken their amount; and, in the second part, he does not provide for them at all. The first part refers to teachers and officers, and he says that £84,000 would satisfy their claims. Now, I am sure that my hon. Friend is perfectly sincere and ingenuous in dealing with the details of the case, and I am sorry to press these details upon the Committee; but, unfortunately, this is a question which can only be discussed in detail. My hon. Friend recognizes the principle that teachers and officers are to receive—first of all their salaries, and secondly the value of their profits and advantages. That is the right principle; and how does he apply it? By giving them fourteen years' purchase of £6,000 a year. Now, £6,000 a year does not even equal the amount of their salaries. £6,000 is allotted by the Act of Parliament as a minimum for their salaries, but it does not equal their salaries; and of their advantages and profits this valuation takes no account at all. There is no difficulty in explaining how the matter stands. The salaries paid to Maynooth amount to £6,540, and fourteen years' purchase will bring them in round numbers, to £92,000. That is the case of the salaries. But the profits and emoluments and advantages are not far short of as much again. And here I wish to state in the most distinct and explicit manner to the Committee, that which has been entirely overlooked by my hon. Friend and by the critics of this Bill, but which it is quite vital to take in view and keep in view if you mean to arrive at a just conclusion. It is this— the immense economy of College life. I speak of that which is known to everyone who has ever lived in any College of our own Universities. ["Oh!"] I am not now speaking of those who have lived there as undergraduates, but of those who have lived there as members of the corporation. They knew perfectly well that if you go down to a College dinner at Oxford now, you will get as good a dinner in the College hall there, costing the College, perhaps, 3s. or 5s., as you will get in a London hotel for 20s.; or as you would be able to provide in your own rooms—I will not say for 20s., but for a very much larger sum than it will cost the College to provide. There is an immense economy in combination as to food, lodging, lighting, attendance, and everything which makes up the cost of life; and the sum which either the teacher or the student costs to Maynooth College is not the sum at which you must compensate him if you proceed on the assumption, and contemplate as the end of your operation, that the College machinery is no longer to be kept at work. For these reasons it, is impossible to adopt the proposition of my hon. Friend. I have here, from the highest authority, from a gentlemen respected alike by persons of all religious persuasions—Dr. Russell, the President of Maynooth—his computation, sent to me on his responsibility, of the value of these profits and advantages enjoyed by the Professors. The value of these is if £4,500, showing at fourteen years' purchase a. total of£63,000. Adding £63,000 to £92,000, instead of paying, as my hon. Friend too sanguinely expected, the sum of £84,000 to compensate for the personal interests of Professors, the demand made in respect of President, Professors, and officers of the College will not be less than £155,000. That is the beginning. Now I come to the second part of the Motion, and there my hon. Friend entirely forgets the equitable principle with which he sets out; for all that he says is that the annual sums provided by the Act shall be paid to the trustees in respect of each of the students in the College. But these annual sums are not the only benefits enjoyed. For example, the sum paid for the maintenance of a pupil does not include all the charges for lodging, lighting, attendance, and so forth, which he shares in the establishment of the College. I will endeavour to give my hon. Friend this part of the case. What I find is that there are, first of all, the payments stipulated to be made in the Schedule of the Act on account of certain classes of students; on account of Dunboyne students, £9,000; and on account of 190 students now receiving £20 a year, £19,000. There are several other payments of the same description, amounting together, as nearly as possible, to £50,000. That sum, added to the sum I mentioned before, makes £204,000; but it is entirely irrespective of the maintenance of the students, for which there is a separate provision in the Act of Parliament. Now, I have got the view placed by the authorities of Maynooth upon the provision for maintenance under the Act of Parliament, and their estimate of the sum at which the students might gain similar advantages—other than those of teaching—if they had to pay for them individually. ' This estimate is placed by the authorities of Maynooth as high as £75 a year for each student. ["Oh!"] That is their estimate, and perhaps the hon. and gallant Colonel who cries "Oh!" may be a better judge than they are. I do not wish to make any claim for them which anyone may think extravagant, even though I think that considerable weight is due to the representations of such persons. The total would amount to £187,000; and personal interests so estimated would come to £25,000 more than the grant now proposed by the Government. But suppose that, instead of £75 per head, we take £40. I do not think that that would be an extravagant allowance, especially when the hon. and gallant Colonel and others, recollect that we must all put off the ideas which we derive from our public schools, where we used to spend only seven or eight months in the year, whereas the vacation at Maynooth is only two months, and in the case of those students, therefore, residence and maintenance for ten months must be provided for. Now, taking £40 as the expense of each student, and giving the term of five years' purchase for the average—including the students of eleven years as well as the students of eight years—that will give you a sum of £100,000; and in this way, dealing with personal interests alone, in the terms, not of the Motion, but of the speech of my hon. Friend, and upon the strictest definition of those interests, you would not get off under a sum exceeding £300,000. The whole question at issue, therefore, is as to a sum of £40,000 or £50,000, for the sake of which it is that the Committee is doomed from day to day, it appears, to spend its time in this discussion. So much for the question of amount, and I give that opinion as a responsible opinion. I have shown my hon. Friend that his computations are erroneous and that his arithmetic is bad. If he tells me he anticipates the continuance of the College of Maynooth, I answer him by saying that he has no right to do so, for his proposition is framed on a principle which tends to discourage its continuance. The next point to which I would refer is the charge of inequality which has been brought against us as to our mode of dealing with this question. It is said that, after having dealt stingily with the Presbyterians and cruelly with the Church, we are displaying an exceptional and exorbitant liberality so far as the Roman Catholic body is concerned. Is it not, let me ask, the fact that the Presbyterians have got a sum of £15,000 over and above that to which they are entitled in the shape of compensation? And what is the meaning of that vote which my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy has given us notice of his intention to omit? Now, setting aside altogether the £700,000, or whatever sum it may be thought the Presbyterian body will receive in respect of the Regium Donum, we are going to give the Presbyterian body, rateably per head, just as much as we are giving to the Roman Catholic body, although the claim with respect to the educational institution is the only claim which the Roman Catholics are in a condition to make, or are disposed to make. The annual sum voted to the Presbyterians is £2,050, which, at fourteen years' purchase, is £28,700, and £15,000 in hard cash added gives £43,700. The Presbyterians are to the Roman Catholics in Ireland as one to nine, so that £384,430 is the multiple by nine of the sum we are going to give to the Presbyterians. I ask what ground is there for the charge of exceptional liberality to the Roman Catholics, when it is clear that to that body, which has no other claim except in respect of its educational institutions, we are going to give no more, man for man, than we are going to give to the Presbyterians, who receive £700,000 for their ministers. I hope, therefore, the Committee will be of opinion that no good reasons have been adduced why they should refuse us their support on the ground that we propose to deal with the Roman Catholics with exceptional liberality. I now come to the Church, and when speaking of it we have one uniform sustained groan and lamentation from those who think they represent the interests of the Church, and who imagine that they can find nothing but harshness and inhuman cruelty in the mode in ' which the provisions relating to it are devised. We are told that we are going to re-endow Maynooth, while in the case of the Church we propose to do nothing of the kind. My hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy says that in the case of the Church the clergymen will enjoy their annuities during their lives, and that when they die there will be nothing remaining. But is this so? My hon. Friend can not be aware that the Bill contains clauses, not only providing, but facilitating; commutations by clergymen with the Church Body. The Church Body will have put into its hands the power of bargaining with every clergyman and every Bishop in Ireland, and tying every clergyman, Bishop, and curate in that country down in a state almost of ecclesiastical serfage—bond slaves almost to the ground. What does this mean? That the Church Body will have the power of securing for its own purposes a considerable share of the compensation money awarded to the Bishops; and sup- pose, instead of putting this power of arrangement into the hands of the Church Body we had reserved it in the hands of the State, and left the State to negotiate the commutation and keep the surplus, £l,000,000 or perhaps £2,000,000 would be made by the State out of these commutations. If some of those who strongly opposed Church establishments had viewed this arrangement in the rigid and narrow spirit applied to it from quarters where they had least reason to expect it, and had said—"Why not reserve to the State the difference between the compensation money and the price which the clergyman will take in order to escape?" we might have been rather pressed for an answer. The only answer we could have given would have been to appeal to the liberal feeling of the House, and to exhort and entreat the majority, which is sometimes called a tyrant ma- jority, to adjust the provisions so as to spare all unnecessary shock and convulsion to the Church Body. But this money, which might have been reserved for public purposes, has been wisely and equitably left to be harvested and stored by the Church Body, regardless of the imputations, which have never been made from this side of the House, that we were endowing or re-endowing the Roman Catholics, and doing nothing for the Irish Church. I had hardly expected that all those representatives connected especially with the interests of the Church, who have received these equitable provisions in silence and without acknowledgment, would have been so ready to turn round on the recipients of the moderate sum proposed for Maynooth, and to propose that we should construct our clauses in regard to the Roman Catholics on principles totally different and more harsh than those applied to other religious bodies. I will only say one word more. The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that we stand in the face of the nation, and that I am anxious to prove to that nation that we are disposed to deal justly with it. The many hours that have been spent in this discussion cannot all go without imposing a duty on us of stating fully and clearly the reasons and conditions of the measure we propose. I have only one word more, and that is with reference to Trinity College. What I have said is no revelation, but a matter of course. Everyone must see that if this Bill passes a great change in Trinity College necessarily depends on it; and all who are specially connected with the interests of the Church of Ireland will do, as the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball) has already done, plead for the retention of some portion of the wealth of Trinity College, however moderate, as a been to enable that body still to maintain some funds applicable for the special purpose of training the members, and especially the ministers of what is at present the Established Church. No one doubts that such a claim will be made, and I cannot help using a voice of warning—warning seems an authoritative word—I will say, of respectful admonition, that we should take care what principles we lay down applicable to the case of Trinity College, when possibly, some twelve months hence, we will have to deal with it. When we do come to deal with that case we will be compelled to take into view the very same class and order of circumstances and conditions which we now deal with. It is in vain to say that Trinity College admits laymen, while Maynooth does not. That is a point of difference; but the essential question is that the Church requires some institution adapted, according to its own laws and ideas, to the training and rearing of its ministry. Trinity College will say what Maynooth is entitled to say—"Give us something—whether a permanent endowment or not is another matter—but give us some equitable sum to enable us to carry on this special work which we have hitherto had in hand. Do not compel us to abandon it, and thereby to leave our Church maimed in one of its most essential and vital members." Well, Sir, I do not like to put myself in the way of turning a deaf ear to such an appeal; but if we are to deal on the principle of how many years you have held your Fellowships and refuse anything but that bare hard measure, I am afraid the tone of complaint arises with little reason from the opposite side of the House. All this will arise with more reason when the educational part of this measure, as far as the Establishment is concerned, comes to be discussed. I will sit down, thanking the Committee for having heard me with such patience. It is a matter not less for the honour of the Government than for the country, that we should prove we have adopted no exceptional principle in this case. We have not extended any more liberality to the Roman Catholics than we have to the Protestant Presbyterians. We would therefore ask the Committee to affirm this clause, add another stone to the fabric, and sustain by a majority the judgment the Government has come to.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

It is not my intention to enter in detail upon the question raised by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy as to the compensation to be made to the College of Maynooth. That is not a matter with which I am desirous of dealing in anything like an ungenerous spirit. I have always felt that the grant made by the State for the support of Maynooth College was a wise grant under the circumstances in which it was originally proposed in the Irish Parliament, and subsequently increased by Sir Robert Peel; but I was never able to look at it in the light in which the Prime Minister so much likes to put it—as a buttress to the Established Church. I have always thought the Maynooth Grant was made on its own merits, and that it was defensible on its own merits for the legitimate and statesmanlike purpose of enabling the clergy of the great majority of the Irish people to obtain an education for their priesthood in their own country, and on that ground it is quite justifiable. That arrangement having been made, I should be the last to dispute that there should be fairness and liberality in the mode in which it is worked out. I rise now chiefly to take notice of the tone in which the Prime Minister speaks of the complaints, the groans, and deplorable lamentations which, as he says, have proceeded from the members and representatives of the Established Church; and also to direct attention to the mode in which he contrasts those complaints with the language used by Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. What is the position in which we stand? The Established Church for centuries has been in possession of property to which it has a good legal title, and you propose to strip it of the whole of that property, and give back to it a very small fraction. You talk of the groans and lamentations of the Established Church, as if it is in the same position as the Presbyterian body, whose annual grant, always precarious, is now to be put an end to; or as the Roman Catholics, who for only a few years, comparatively, have received a grant out of the Consolidated Fund. I say that we do not stand in the same position, and when you talk of the terms we are to receive and of the large-handed liberality the Church is to be dealt with. I say I cannot recognize that liberality in your leaving us a small portion of our own property. In the last Session, when the Resolutions for disestablishing and disendowing the Irish Church were adopted, it was suggested by some Members, and the suggestion was accepted by the proposers of the Resolutions, that at the same time the grants made by the State to other religious bodies in Ireland should be put an end to; and the 4th Resolution, which is one of the foundations of this Bill, declared that those grants should be withdrawn, "due regard being had to all personal interests." We never heard then, as we have heard now, for the first time, that as respects Maynooth, not only regard is to be had to the personal interests of those who receive the money, but to the circumstances connected with the great transition which the clergy have to meet. I do not mean to say that those circumstances of transition ought not to be considered in dealing with a great institution in this way, but that is not in the bargain which was made last year. The Government were going beyond that bargain, which was the condition and understanding on which this Parliament was elected. The constituencies had never been appealed to on this question of granting money to Maynooth to facilitate the transition to which the College of Maynooth was about to pass. The appeal to the country had been made on grounds of individual justice, which Englishmen were never in the habit of refusing. Now, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy says—"Let us do in the Bill that which you told the country you would do;" and the words proposed by the hon. Member will effect that object, while the words in the Bill of the Government will effect something more. The amount is of no importance, but the question is whether, as a matter of principle, we ought to go beyond the understanding of last year. The hon. Member has fairly made out his case, that if we are to fulfil our pledges to our constituents this is the point at which we ought to stop. When you come to deal with the Established Church you bind it down to the strict terms of the bargain of last year, and you offer the Church nothing but compensation for vested interests and the churches which are included in that bargain. In one respect you even offer the Church less than the bargain, for you are not giving to it the glebes. But, on the other hand, you give more to the Roman Catholics than the bargain implies. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government says that we forgot all about the commutation, and this is a most remarkable part of his speech; for he states that, by the terms of the commutation, the Church will get £1,000,000,or £1,500,000, or £2,000,000 more than by the strict letter of the bargain it is entitled to. How is that made out? Take the case of a man who is in receipt of £300 or £400 a year for his life. You propose to abolish the Church and to compensate the holder of that income for his life interest. Now, the ordinary mode of compensating a man when his office is abolished is to give him the whole amount of his income, and to allow him to do with his time whatever he pleases. In the case of the Irish Church the right hon. Gentleman does not act in the same way. He tells the clergyman that he may have his £300, or £400 a year, but coupled with the condition that he is to continue to perform the duties of his office. That, however, is a little less than the terms of the agreement of last year. However. I do not complain of the arrangement; but I complain of the argument which the Prime Minister attempts to draw from it. I complain that the right hon. Gentleman suggests that it might be possible for the State to have taken all that property into its own hands, and after having, in the first instance, promised the clergyman the amount of his vested interest, then to attach to it that condition.

MR. GLADSTONE

I never said that if we had taken into our own hands the business of commutation we should have attached that condition of the performance of the duties. But if we had given annuities we should have kept in our own hands the subject of commutation.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

Then I confess I am utterly bewildered as to the mode in which the right hon. Gentleman could get £1,000,000, or £1,500,000, or £2,000,000 out of the commutation. Because what is the case? You would have to pay these annuities of £300,000 a year; you are to make no conditions whatever; there is to be a power of commutation and of commutation in the hands of the State, and that is to be so manipulated that £1,000,000, or £l,500,000, or £2,000,000 may be got out of the commutation. How is that conceivable? certainly we do not dispute the financial skill of the present Government, but I cannot for the life of me see how any just bargain can be made by which sums of this kind can be commuted for £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 less than they are worth. I think it would be scarcely worthy of the State first of all to give the annuity as a free gift and then to go and commute it on terms on which the State might be a great gainer. That would hardly be an operation to the credit of the State; and if not to the credit of the State, the Prime Minister hardly ought to take credit for not performing it. Such is the tone in which we have been addressed upon the whole of this subject. We are told that it is entirely owing to the liberality of the Government that they give us anything at all; and we know very well it is in their power to strip the Church entirely; and because they do not perform that operation with the very extremity of severity they turn on us and say—"We have dealt with you in a spirit of large liberality." I really must protest against such assumption.

MR. FAWCETT

wished, in consequence of the frequent reference which had been made in this debate to the case of Trinity College, Dublin, to make a very few remarks. No one could accuse him of religious bigotry, for, on every subject, whether religious or educational, he had always been anxious that Catholics, as such, should have the same privileges as were enjoyed by members of the Church of England. As an illustration of this, he might say that for the last twelve years he had strenuously exerted himself for the admission of Catholics to his own University, and he only wished that the Bill of the Solicitor General had carried out the principle of religious equality in its entirety. But he was placed in great difficulty by the remarks of the Prime Minister in regard to Trinity College, Dublin. He did not object to compensation being given to Roman Catholic students and professors. He would be the last to chaffer about pounds, shillings, and pence; but this was not a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. It involved a great and most important principle. If compensation were given in a different form, if it were thought that the life interests of Professors and students were not properly compensated, he would double the amount; but what he said was that this lump sum was not a compensation, but an endowment. He based that statement chiefly on the speech of the Secretary for Ireland when this subject was lately before the House. What did he say? He said they ought not to object to give this lump sum to Maynooth College, because it would then only be in the position of a balance or set-off to Trinity College, Dublin. The argument was repeated by the hon. Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don) and it was unanswerable only on one supposition—that Trinity College, Dublin, was to remain in its present position. But the House had decided, or all but decided, that all religious disabilities of every kind should be removed from the honours and emoluments of Trinity College; and he could not sanction the establishment of any College which could be regarded, in a denominational point of view, as a set-off to Trinity College. If they agreed to this, they would be told by the Prime Minister that they should reserve some portion of the revenues of Trinity College for the education of the Anglican clergy. And what would that lead to? To the carrying out of a favourite scheme to cut up Trinity College into a set of sectarian and denominational Colleges. Anxious as he was to throw open Trinity College, he would rather it should remain in its present position than have it cut up into denominational Colleges. But for the watchfulness and pertinacity of the right hon. Gentleman who was now Chancellor of the Exchequer a supplemental charter would have been given by the late Government, which would have destroyed the Queen's College so far as the interests of mixed education were concerned. Last year another attempt was made, which, if successful, would have been still more disastrous to the interests of education in Ireland; he alluded to the proposal to endow and grant a charter to a Roman Catholic University. There was, therefore, a powerful party in the State anxious to do something to weaken the cause of mixed education in Ireland; and he could not give a vote which would be drawn into a precedent for splitting up Trinity College into a set of denominational Colleges. He looked to mixed education as the best hope for Ireland, for until religious faction ceased Ireland would not be happy or prosperous.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, he should not have troubled the Committee with any remarks upon the subject of debate had it not been for the observations of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). That hon. Gentleman had referred to a measure which they both were equally engaged in promoting—namely, the enlargement of the present area of comprehension of the Universities of this country. Now he (the Solicitor General) begged to assure his hon. Friend that, if he thought that by supporting the clause he would be doing injury to that measure, or that he would in any way be encouraging a narrow or sectarian system of education in these Universities, he should hesitate before recording his vote in favour of the Government. The analogy, however, which his hon. Friend had attempted to draw had really nothing to do with the question now before the House. There were in England great and ancient institutions whose scope they were endeavouring to enlarge. But in Ireland they had a very different state of matters. There they had two large and exclusively denominational bodies. These religious bodies had the right to have a ministry, and a ministry belonging to each, and for this purpose institutions were necessary where these ministers could be educated and brought up. It was essential, and was only just and fair, that a large, wealthy, and important body, as the Disestablished Church of Ireland was likely to be for a considerable length of time—he hoped for ever—should have some place for the education of their ministry. It was equally true that the great and powerful body which was arrayed against the Protestant Church should likewise have some place for the education of their ministry. He thought, for his own part, that it was impossible to deny the claim of the Disestablished Church of Ireland to some amount of reasonable provision for the education of that important portion of its members who were to minister to its religious wants. Perhaps at some far distant date religious differences might be altogether allayed, and persons holding different opinions might be educated together at the same seminary. But as yet there was no prospect of such a consummation, and it was the duty of the practical statesman to deal with things as he found them. That being so, it appeared to him important that the Church of Ireland should by-and-by have some reasonable provision for the education of her ministers, and that the Catholic Church should also have the means of effecting the same object; and it was upon that ground that he thought reasonable and generous compensation should be made to the Roman Catholics. They might call this compensation endowment, or what they pleased; but they were about to withdraw from the Roman Catholics a largo sum which had been paid year by year to them out of the Consolidated Fund, and it was right that they should get an equivalent. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side complained that the Roman Catholics were being more liberally dealt with than the Protestant Church; but in answer to that he might say that when this Bill was passed, and when the three religious bodies of Ireland stood equal in the eyes of the law, the result would be that a part of the money—between £8,000,000, and £9,000,000—would be at the disposal of between 700,000 and 800,000 members of the present Established Church; a sum of between £700,000 and £800,000 would be at the disposal of between 400,000 and 500,000 Presbyterians; and between £350,000 and £400,000 would be at the disposal of between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 Catholics. That surely was not showing any want of generosity or open-handedness on the part of the Government towards the Protestant Church.

MR. NEWDEGATE

thanked the hon. Member for Brighton for his speech, because it had elicited from the Solicitor General a virtual confession of the fact that what was to be given to Maynooth constituted tin endowment. The hon. and learned Gentleman based his apology upon this—that endowments still existed in connection with Trinity College, which was open to persons of all denominations, and argued hence, that, therefore, an endowment should be given to this exclusively Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. But they had nothing to do with Trinity College. It was not included in this Bill. And why were Maynooth and the College of Belfast imported into the Bill if they were not to be treated upon the same principle as the Established Church? It was perfectly clear that Maynooth, although imported into this Bill, was to be dealt with upon terms different to those that were contemplated with respect to Trinity College. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy had based his Amendment upon certain calculations clearly deductible from the terms of the Bill. He (Mr. Newdegate) held in his hand the calculations of an actuary based upon those terms, and those calculations were as follows:— The only life interests in connection with Maynooth are the Processors and officials, whose salaries amount to £6,000 per annum, and the students, whose interests amount to £20,360. Taking the average term of about six years, their commuted value, allowing interest at 3½ percent, and taking the mean age of the Processors at from fifty-five to fifty-six, and that of the students at from twenty to twenty-one, the amount to be given to the Professors would be £70,500, and to the students £73,296, making a total of £143,796. So that the Prime Minister was proposing to pay Maynooth £245,244 beyond the commutation. Thus it was perfectly plain that as the Bill would terminate only the grant paid annually under the statute of 1845, to the Trustees of Maynooth; after that had been compensated by fourteen years' allowance, a surplus of £240,000 would remain as an endowment to the corporation of Maynooth, if the total sum of £385,000, proposed by the Government, were granted. But, besides this, while the whole property of the Church was confiscated, the property of Maynooth was to be retained to the corporation for ever, and untouched. He (Mr. Newdegate) knew that the income from this property amounted to about £2,500 a year, but he believed that it came to more. But how did the Prime Minister make use of this in argument? He produced accounts from the Principal and other authorities at Maynooth, showing the whole expenditure of the College—an expenditure met partly by the grant, and partly by the income of the property of the College—; and he calculated the compensation to be granted according to the whole income, which met the whole expenditure, I making no account of the fact that it was the grant only which was to cease, while the property was to be continued to the College, and thus attempted to account for the excess of grant above the compensation, which would be justly due if the loss of the grant only was to be compensated. This was the ingenious device which the right hon. Gentleman; adopted to conceal the fact that he was; about to give Maynooth an endowment. At the commencement of his speech the: right hon. Gentleman dwelt largely upon the principle of equality, yet there was no equality in the terms upon which he proposed to deal with Maynooth, as compared with the terms to be dealt to the Church. Really the right hon. Gentleman lectured upon equality and liberty until he (Mr. Newdegate) almost imagined that he was listening to the Count Montalembert, who, twenty years ago, recommended the Roman Catholics in this country to claim full liberty, and in everything perfect religious equality. And why? Because, wrote the Count Montalembert, in his work entitled The Political Future of England— If you, the Roman Catholics in England, obtain perfect religious equality, and perfect religious liberty, there is nothing in the Constitution of England that can withstand your power. When that was written there was little idea that Parliament would now be disestablishing and disendowing the Church of Ireland at the instance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Let them regard this principle of equality. Why had they confiscated the property of the Protestant Episcopal Church? And why? Because it was guilty of the sin of being connected with the State. According to the principles of hon. Gentlemen, why should they not deal with the property of the Roman Catholics in the same way, confiscated as they were confiscating that of the Protestant Church, and throw the whole into "hotch-potch'?" The Prime Minister's plan of allotting so much per head of this property to each of the population might then come in; and in that case he believed the Church of Ireland would not suffer, for the Archbishop of Armagh was right when he said that the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was the wealthiest community in the world in proportion to its extent. The statements by which the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had sought to defeat the Motion of the hon. Member (Mr. Aytoun) were based on grounds entirely apart from the Parliamentary grant to Maynooth. Having thought through this subject, he was prepared to say that the statement of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Aytoun) remained undisputed, and he prayed the Committee not to take this opportunity of granting an exceptional favour to Maynooth in the same Bill by which they were confiscating the property of the Protestant Establishment.

MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN

begged to offer a few words of explanation. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had spoken of him as an astute person, and declared that he had made the best of his opportunities of studying political life, inasmuch as he had passed over all the clauses relating to the Pres- byterians, and only attacked the principle in the case of Maynooth. But the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that he had announced his intention of dividing in favour of retaining Clause 37—the clause regulating the payments to the Professors of the Presbyterian College—which was afterwards omitted upon the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman himself, his reason for giving the Notice being that, unless he divided against that clause, he could not honestly oppose the proposed settlement in the case of Maynooth. But upon that occasion the hon. Member for Shaftesbury (Mr. Glyn) came to him and asked whether it was his intention to divide?—and he, and other Members friendly to the Government certainly gave him to understand that it would be more agreeable to the House that he should not divide upon that particular clause, as there would be opportunities of raising the question further on. Not desiring to annoy the House, or to delay the progress of the Bill, he abandoned his intention of dividing upon that question. And now he was called "an astute person" by the light hon. Gentleman. These were the thanks he got. Again, upon the last day that the Committee met, some verbal Amendments were standing in his name; and, to save time, at the instance of the right hon. Gentleman, he waived Ms right to propose these, and also consented to postpone his objections to the third head, to allow the division to be taken upon the Main Question. This he did simply to save time; but now the right hon. Gentleman complained of these very postponements, and asked, if he was anxious to maintain a principle, why he did not apply it to the Widow's and Clerk's Funds, as well as to Maynooth, and actually talked about "chaffering," and the smallness of these amounts. He had looked into the returns of amounts formerly paid under these different heads, and found that the widows received only £166, and the clerks £l52. The incidental expenses came to £250; and he had given notice of his intention to attack that sum, but consented to wait till the Main Question was disposed of. After this explanation, the Committee, he hoped, would acquit him from the charge which the right hon. Gentleman had brought against him.

MR. BENTINCK

, who rose amid loud cries of "Divide," moved that the Chairman report Progress.

Whereupon Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."— (Mr. Bentinck.)

The Committee divided:—Ayes 173; Noes 343: Majority 170.

MR. GLADSTONE

I wish to say a few words with respect to the course of business, because I think it is material to the general convenience of the House. With regard to the hon. Member (Mr. Bentinck), I am quite sure that any remarks he may have to address to the Committee will be heard with readiness by the House, and I believe the untoward accident of the last division arose from a belief by many hon. Members that he was shut out from his seat. I wish to know what would be the general wish with regard to the progress of what now remains of this Bill. We are near our last division with respect to Maynooth. I think it would be well for the Committee—for there is no point requiring prolonged discussion—to go on sitting this evening to a somewhat later hour than usual. I believe it is for the convenience of the House, and for the convenience of those in "another place," as I understand, that we should be ready to take the third reading of this Bill shortly after Whitsuntide. For that purpose, it would be necessary to take the Report before Whitsuntide. What I wish particularly to observe is—that I do not think the Report ought to be taken without an interval of four or five days. The Bill, no doubt, will be reprinted immediately after we are out of Committee; but it would not do, for instance, that the Committee should be postponed to Monday, and then the Report taken on Thursday. That, I think, would not be fair to parties in Ireland, who would naturally, and very properly, wish to have a day or two to survey it there, in order to inform Gentlemen in the House on any point on which they might not have gathered accurately and precisely the purport of what has been done here. As far as I can judge, the questions that still remain will be finally disposed of to-morrow between the Morning Sitting and the Evening Sitting. If necessary, we should make arrangements with Gentlemen to take an early consi- deration of the questions they may have upon the books. But it would be a great advantage, and greatly increase our hopes of concluding the matter—for both sides of the House have entirely a common purpose, so far as I am aware—if we should continue the sitting to-night somewhat beyond the usual hour.

SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE

hoped it would be understood that hon. Gentlemen having Motions on the Paper to-morrow would postpone them.

MR. BENTINCK

said, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had spoken of the last division as an untoward one; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would admit that it was not entirely his fault that a division had been taken. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not address himself to the new Members who were in the House in such large numbers. All those with whom he had sat for some ten years were aware that he was not in the habit of addressing the House at any length, nor very frequently. ["Oh." oh!"] He repeated that he did not address himself to now Members who were ignorant on the point. When he first arose to address the Committee he was about to state that, not having had the advantage of attending to this debate, it was not his intention to trouble the Committee at any length; but the Prime Minister having referred to a gesture of his (Mr. Bentinck's), he was about shortly to state his reasons, when he was interrupted. The Prime Minister was claiming for himself the great advantage he had given the Irish Church under this Bill, and he said that as he had given the Irish Church £9,000,000, and Maynooth only £400,000, it was a monstrous thing for anyone to complain. The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had raised a question, which was participated in by many, whether this Bill did not create a rich endowment for Maynooth. But having regard for the hour, he would not then pursue it. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had thrown all the cost of keeping up the ecclesiastical buildings and glebe houses upon the clergy, and he had stated the private endowments at £500,000; but when he was pressed upon that point, some few days since, he said he had no reliable authority for stating it at that sum—it was mere matter of conjecture, the Irish Church Commission having placed it at £272,000. He was not a great financier like the right hon. Gentleman, but he had mastered four rules of arithmetic, and therefore he wanted to know how the new Church Body was to pay the charges on the ecclesiastical buildings and glebe houses out of these private endowments, and yet be on an equality with Maynooth, that was to have £400,000? Of course, if the endowments did not exceed £272,000, why, of course, so much the worse for the Irish Church. Could that be said to be treating them on an equality. ["Oh, oh!"] No doubt, those facts were distasteful to the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, why were masters for the time being. He should like to hear some facts come out of their mouths, and for one of them to rise and attempt to confute the figures he had given. He defied them to do it. That was the reason why he ventured to make use of the gesture referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. He had made his statement disregardless of the cries of the miserable majority—["Oh, oh!"]—and he used the term "miserable" not in the English sense, as it had been used by an hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Hoare) who represented a metropolitan borough, when speaking of the minority, but in its French sense, because they were in that condition in that House that on every occasion they attempted to stifle free discussion.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

regretted that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government should have said that those who objected to the arrangements for Maynooth had reserved their objections till after the arrangements connected with the Regium Donum had been agreed to. He had been asked by those among his constituents who were Presbyterians to complain that the principle of equality upon which this measure was asserted to be framed had not been followed in the case of the College of Belfast. They urged, that while the grant to Maynooth embraced provision for the salaries of the Professors, the support of the students, and the repairs of the buildings, the grant on account of the Belfast College dealt only with the Professors' income, limited to their life interest, and made no provision for the maintenance of the students or aged ministers, or for the repairs of the building. He could not be accused of evincing any hostility towards Maynooth, because he had hitherto supported the grant to that College, against the wish of many of his constituents. He therefore felt that he could, with the greater reason, urge that the College of Belfast should be treated on the same footing as Maynooth, and if that were done he felt convinced that perfect satisfaction would be given. The Solicitor General had accused those who sat on his side of the House with organizing an attack upon Maynooth; but the hon. and learned Gentleman should remember that it was not they who sought to disturb the existing arrangement, but that that disturbance was a part of the scheme brought forward by the Government.

SIR HENRY HOARE

, having been pointedly alluded to by the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Bentinck) begged to remark that he had, on a former occasion, disclaimed any intention of saying anything offensive to hon. Members opposite when he had made use of the word "miserable." The term might have been unfortunate; but it was not inexpressive when intending to convey the idea that their minority was infinitesimal. Reference had been made by the hon. Gentleman to young Members, amongst whom must be included the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Sir George Jenkinson). He assured the hon. Member for Whitehaven that the young Members entered into a debate with fresh feelings and warm sympathies, and they were, therefore, the Members that were most impatient of frivolity and bombast.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 305; Noes 198: Majority 107.

SIR GEORGE JENKINSON

said, that having resisted the progress of the Bill at every stage up to this point, and thus satisfied his own conscience, and done his duty by those who had returned him to the House, expressed his determination to fight no more against the measure, believing that, as the Bill had progressed so far, the sooner it was sent to ''another place" the better. He hoped that, in its progress through the other House, it would receive more of even-handed justice and generosity than had been the case in this House, where we have heard so much but seen so little of those two qualities. To give fourteen years' income to Maynooth out of the funds of the Church, while the clergyman of the Church itself had only a life interest in its funds, was anything but justice and equality; but he was resolved to fight the question no more, and would therefore withdraw the further Amendment he had upon the Paper.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 40 to 42 agreed to.

Clause 43 (Compensation to Ecclesiastical Commissioners and their officers). The salaries of the Commissioners were fixed by inserting the words "the sum of £1,000 each during then natural lives respectively." Compensations were also awarded to the solicitors and clerks of the Commissioners, and other officers.

MR. PIM

having withdrawn an Amendment standing in his name.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 44 (Compensation to vicars general and other officers by annuities equal to their average income for the three years ending 1st January, 1870).

THE MARQUESS OF HAMILTON moved, in page 21, line 3, after "recommend," insert— Provided always, That in any case where a deputy registrar shall for five years before the passing of this Act have discharged the duty of the office of registrar, such deputy registrar shall receive from the Commissioners such sum by way of compensation for the loss of his office as the Commissioners shall think right, and such sum shall be deducted from the amount payable under this Act to the principal registrar.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)

said, the Amendment of the noble Lord solved the difficulty which was felt in the case.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 45 to 48, agreed to.

Clause 49 (Regulations as to payment of annuity.)

MR. GLADSTONE moved to add at the end of the clause, "All commutation moneys paid under this Act in lieu of annuities shall be calculated at the rate of three pounds ten shillings per centum per annum."

Motion agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 50 and 51 agreed to.

Clause 52 (Sales of lands, &c., may be made in Landed Estates Court.)

MR. M'MAHON moved, at end of clause, to add— Provided always, That in all sales by the Com- missioners, whether in the Landed Estates Court or otherwise, each farm or holding shall be offered for sale separately, and the terre-tenant in actual occupation thereof shall be preferred in the purchase of it before any other person; and until he shall have declined to accept the Commissioners' offer, or in case of a sale by auction in the said Court some one else bids more than he, after notice of such bidding, will offer, his benefit of preference or pre-emption is not to be lost.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)

thought the Amendment too wide and unnecessary, because the right of pre-emption was already secured by the 33rd clause.

Amendment withdrawn.

Then on Motion of the ATTORNEY GE-NERAL for IRELAND, words—" Any right of pre-emption hereinbefore secured shall be as far as possible preserved by the said court," inserted.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 53 to 57 agreed to.

Clause 58 (Regulation as to vacancies.)

SIR HERVEY BRUCE

suggested that it would be well to postpone the consideration of this clause, as several Amendments were to be proposed.

MR. GLADSTONE

, after hoping that hon. Gentlemen would he in attendance at the resumption of the Committee at two o'clock to-morrow, explained, that the Amendment which stood in his name merely supplied an omission in the Bill.

House resumed.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.