HC Deb 20 March 1906 vol 154 cc323-41
MR. DUFFY (Galway, S.)

The Resolution I have the honour to submit for the consideration of the House, reads as follows—"That in the opinion of this House, the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, are not used to the best advantage for the promotion of the higher education of the Irish people, and that, in view of the deplorable condition of higher education in Ireland, it is of vital and urgent importance that the control and administration of these large revenues should be so achieved as to make them available for the use of the general body of the nation."

I am not going to be tempted to enter upon anything like a critical historical survey of Trinity College and the University of Dublin, for the best of all reasons—I am not possessed of that close intimate knowledge of the institution which some of my learned friends can justly lay claim to; it is enough for my purpose to give a cursory glance back and see what it has done in the way of fulfilling its obligations in so far as providing a higher class University education for my fellow countrymen, and how it is engaged to-day in the pursuit of that great educational mission. As the House is well aware, Trinity College was established in the year 1592, on a charter of incorporation granted by Queen Elizabeth, and I speak the candid truth when I say it was built and endowed on the ruins of and out of the funds derived from the confiscated properties of the Catholics of Ireland. During all those centuries it has been conducted on exclusively Protestant lines—a foreign institution, nurtured and pampered during all those years for the express purpose of degrading and keeping the Catholic people of Ireland in ignorance—whilst its enormous revenues are employed for the purpose of catering and providing a higher class University education for practically all those opposed to the Catholic and Nationalist forces in Ireland. As I have said, three centuries have now passed since it was first called into existence, and, except for some slight change which has taken place in the government of the College within a comparatively recent date, it has never faltered in its original mission, but remained perfectly consistent and even loyal and faithful to the teaching, and spirit of its founders, and has even treated the Catholic people of Ireland as outcasts and strangers. Some attempts have been made to concede to Irish Catholics a system satisfactory to the people, but all such attempts have failed, so far, in carrying out the objects in view. In the year 1794 the Irish Parliament made an attempt to settle the question; Up till that period the Irish Catholics were forbidden to attend the colleges giving a higher class education. Since then various other attempts have been made in the same direction by the Government of this country, and all of them have resulted in turning out failures of the worst possible kind. The last attempt, as the House will remember, was the appointment and sending out of a Royal Commission in the year 1901, for the purpose of gathering together all the expert evidence in Ireland on the subject, with a view of evolving a scheme satisfying the requirements of the Catholics of Ireland. A good deal of time and trouble was spent in trying to find a way out of the difficulty; they compiled a number of books of great educational interest, but the fact of excluding Trinity College, the one solitary teaching University in Ireland, from the scope of the inquiry, reduced the value of, if it did not destroy entirely the Report of the Commission. As usual nothing has come out of that Report, and Ireland to-day, as a consequence, is deprived of the opportunities for higher class University education, enjoyed by every other civilised country in the world. At the time the terms of reference to the late Royal Commission were being settled it was made abundantly clear that Trinity College should be included if it was to bear any good result. The Presbyterians protested, for at a meeting of the Education Committee of that body a resolution was passed and sent to the Government. The Committee— Protested in the strongest terms against the suggested exemption of Trinity College, Dublin, from the scope of the inquiry of the Royal Commission, as any inquiry so restricted instead of inspiring public confidence would awaken mistrust, etc. Some of the other religious bodies also expressed dissent, and it is well known that Trinity College was excluded from the inquiry, because, amongst other reasons, Judge Madden threatened to resign his Commission if there was any inquiry as to Trinity.

The great Archbishop of Tuam, in examining the late Mr. Lecky, stated that Trinity College— Deliberately excluded itself from the purview of the Commission. And His Grace said that that was— A real misfortune. So that the cry was that no inquiry was to be made into Trinity College, and it was clearly on this understanding that the representatives of Trinity supported the claim of the Catholics to have a University of their own, though subsequently they made use of the exclusion of Trinity to do injury to any other finding of the Commission. For Dr. Traill, the Provost (Vol. III. p. 205), said— If a new College is started in Dublin, with reduced fees, etc., it would be impossible for Trinity College, Dublin, to hold their own against such unfair competition. Again, in order to be in a position to defy competition, they would require another £100,000, and an annual grant of £6,000 a year. And then Dr. Traill went on to say that there was room for another College and University in Dublin. All this goes to show that Trinity College was purposely and designedly excluded from the terms of the Commission. I suggest that it was because they were afraid it would be proved up to the hilt, that since the Fawcett Act was passed in 1873 it would be impossible for the College to prove that the property of the University granted to it by Elizabeth, James I., Charles I. and II. was to be used as private property of the Provost and Senior Fellows, or that the confiscated estates were to be used for Protestant and Episcopal purposes only. In the debates in this House in 1873, the College authorities professed the desire to make the University a national one, and this is borne out by the preamble to Fawcett's Act, which reads— It is expedient that the benefits of Trinity College and the University of Dublin and of the schools in the said University, as places of religion and learning, should be rendered freely accessible to the nation. It could be shown that Trinity College has been enormously endowed out of public funds, not merely from the funds derived out of the Catholic estates confiscated all over the land, but by special grants from the Irish Parliament. In June 1709, our Parliament granted £5,000 to Trinity— For erecting a public library in the said College. Again on 31st October, 1751, a further sum of £5,000 was voted— To be expended in and towards rebuilding and adding to said College. And Taylor's History says— By the sanction of their Majesties King William III., Queen Anne, King George I., II., and III., various sums were voted by Parliament for buildings in College, the whole sum amounting to £75,000, and still later a sum of £20,000 was lent (interest free) by the Government for the same purpose. Again, a sum computed to be about £140,000 was given as compensation for the right of presentation to livings which was taken away from the College in 1869. And it must also be borne in mind that under the Land Act, 1903, a yearly sum of £5,000 a year was guaranteed to Trinity to make good any losses sustained through the operation of the Land Act. The rental of Trinity College Estates, which are scattered over twelve counties, and which comprise about 200,000 acres in the lands of about 10,000 tenants, and which is valued under the Poor Law valuation at about £100,000 — is usually referred to as about £36,000 a year, but this is entirely an underestimate. No doubt the College receives £35,423 a year from middlemen, but in addition they draw a large rental of about £7,500 from tenants in occupation, and the Provost's private estate, the rental of which is not ascertainable, but which I am sure I do not exaggerate when I hit upon the valuation, which is £2,640, making a gross total of revenue to the College of £45,583. From all this it is clear that those speaking on behalf of Trinity College acted wisely in excluding the College, its endowments, its revenue, its controlling board and its system of carrying on the education of the nation, from the scope of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into higher class education in Ireland. If the Commission had received power to investigate the affairs of Trinity, amongst other strange and unnatural phenomena that would come to light would be the absurd system of government that still rules the affairs of Trinity. It is a fact that the affairs and administration of the College are altogether in the hands of the Provost and seven Senior Fellows who constitute the Board. These are supposed to be men of vigour and great intellectual eminence, men who shine in the world of historical or literary research. That I cannot speak about, but what is the fact regarding their ages? I understand they are all old men, beyond the allotted span of life, —unlike the Civil Service or any other business in the world supposed to be conducted by men of vigour and men free from all physical complaints. Let me read for the information of the House the names and the ages of the distinguished gentlemen who are supposed, from day to day, to discharge the multitudinous duties entrusted to the keeping of a Board who have the name and the character and efficiency of a great University in their keeping—

Born Years
Traill, Anthony Nov. 1, 1838 aged 67
Barlow, Rev. James W. Oct. 21, 1826 aged 80
Williamson, Benjamin 1827 aged 79
Abbot, Rev. James K. Mar. 26, 1829 aged 77
Gray, Rev. Thomas T. 1834 aged 72
Mahaffy, Rev. J. P. July 12, 1839 aged 67
Tarleton, Francis A. Apr. 20, 1841 aged 65
Tyrell, R. Y. Jan. 21, 1844 aged 62
The average age of the governors is seventy-one and one-eighth years. It is absurd to think that a body of gentlemen so old and decrepit could possibly be able to attend to the affairs of such a great institution as the University of Dublin. Let the House picture to itself the position of Ireland to-day in respect to this great educational grievance. Ireland has a population of over 4,500,000, and for 4,500,000 of people Ireland has one teaching University; while on the other hand, Scotland with a lesser population, has four, England has seven, Germany has twenty-two and in addition innumerable schools of the highest possible rank. And yet there are people to be found who wonder at the backward condition of the Irish people, and they grow wild and furious at the bare mention of setting up a national University for the education of the Catholic people of Ireland. How unreasonable and inconsistent they are, surely! They object to the establishment of a truly national University in Ireland, while at the same time they freely and willingly and generously endow a college for Mahommedans in Egypt. They maintain sectarian colleges in this country. They maintain, and justly so, in the north of Ireland, a University for the education of the Presbyterians of the north. They maintain every form of education in Ireland on strictly sectarian principles. Why, in the year 1852 Her late Majesty granted a Charter providing for the University education of her Catholic subjects in Canada, where the Catholic population was only 40 per cent. as against 90 per cent. in Ireland. You endow a Jewish College in Stephen's Green, and while you do all this, you hesitate and refuse to set up and endow a truly national University for the Catholics of Ireland. We have oftentimes been told that the reason why you oppose our fair and legitimate demands is because you think we are wishful and desirous of setting up an exclusively Catholic University —one governed by Roman Catholic bishop and priests. That is a false charge to prefer against us. We have asked and we continue to demand, and shall persist in our importunity till you satisfy us, till you give us a University that will satisfy—to quote Mr. Balfour's words— "The legitimate aspirations of the Catholics," a University which in its inception and government shall be truly national and acceptable to the great mass of the Irish people. The Irish people will never accept any system which banishes religion out of the schools, and the House should bear in mind it is dealing with a county where four-fifths of the people are Catholics. And how, therefore, is it possible to disregard and set at naught the religious convictions of the people? The idea is impossible. It is simply monstrous to ask any Irish Catholic—when the time has arrived for perfecting his education—to leave his country, to leave his religion, to bid good-bye to the associations of religion and home, and to enter an institution where he finds himself in an atmosphere of rigid Protestantism. For, notwithstanding the changes effected in Trinity College within recent years, it is yet openly and aggressively a centre of Protestant thought and learning. It was founded and endowed for proselytising purposes, and the endowment included a Divinity school. After two hundred years of proscription, it is not long ago since positions of emolument were thrown open to Catholics. Yes, but some may say, "Is not all that bigotry and exclusion a thing of the past— Catholics are no longer shut out. Tests and disabilities have been removed." That is so, to a limited extent; but it is a well-known fact that the College is not acceptable or considered congenial for my co-religionists in Ireland. It was bred low and reared in Protestantism. It is Protestant in its history. It is Protestant in its customs and religious observances. It is as Protestant to-day as ever. Ninety per cent. of its students are Protestants. The Provost, the Fellows, and all the Professors are of the same religion, and consequently it is absurd and ridiculous for anybody to contend that it is suited to the wants and requirements of my fellow-countrymen. Is it not the height of madness to expect the Catholics of Ireland to be satisfied with it as a means of University education? It is, and, what is more, in face of the persistent and continual opposition offered to our claims for equality in University Life. The time has arrived at last when the leaders of public opinion in Ireland must take up a definite and determined stand in respect to the matter. And now that the way is cleared, inasmuch as the land question, slowly but gradually, is moving out of the way, it is a matter of urgent practical politics to concentrate their attention and undivided energies in having this great national question settled once and finally. Trinity, no doubt, is a great, historic institution, with long and ancient traditions behind it. It has given to the world some great and illustrious men, but as compared with its opportunities it has done very little. There is no good, however, in crying over the past. What is gone is gone and cannot be recalled. Let us look to the future. Let the new Government handle this grave and complicated problem in a brave, upright, and righteous manner. If they do so, I am almost certain the day is not far distant when our land— once a nation of poets, bards, dramatists, orators, preachers, children of wit and children of fancy—will once again regain its position amongst the most learned and scholarly on this earth.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

seconded the Motion. He said it was not possible for him to say, in the time available to-night, one-tenth of what he had intended to say, but he would state a number of facts which, he imagined, would be a revelation to hon. Members on both sides of the House with reference to Dublin University, in order to show that there was great need for thorough inquiry into the administration of that institution. During the régime of the late Government he put a notice on the Paper asking for a return in regard to the administration, the revenues, and the method of teaching at Trinity College. The junior Member for the City of London said that the return could not be given, and the right hon. Gentleman referred him for information on the subject to a number of documents which he named. He would give briefly the result of his researches, and he might say that he could prove his statements up to the hilt by documents. His researches went to show that Trinity College was gravely mismanaged with reference to the distribution of its finances, the appointment of teachers, and the bestowal of degrees. Speaking as a Protestant, and with no feeling of unkindness towards Trinity College, where he had himself been a public examiner, he said that under its present management it was unacceptable to the very class for whom it was intended. For one in the Protestant community who would openly approve it, nine would condemn. The number of students who received the M.A. degree in 1886 was 1,346, while in 1903 the number had declined to 938. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were filled with Protestant Irishmen who went there rather than to their own colleges. That very day at University College the election had taken place of a Protestant Irishman as master. The Chancellor of Trinity College, Lord Rosse, sent his son to Oxford. It was notorious that Trinity College was not acceptable, not only to Roman Catholics, but to what might be called the cream of the intellect, of the Protestant nobility and gentry of Ireland. Of three men who were representatives in succession of Cambridge University all were Irish, and two were closely connected by antecedents with Trinity College. Out of £66,000 per annum £20,000 was divided among eight old men—the Provost and the seven senior Fellows, whose average age was seventy-one. That was how education was promoted in Ireland. As to the Fellowship training, while it involved enormous intellectual labour it did not give to any man who got a fellowship any better position than a man who did not. Trinity College was called a teaching University. It was nothing of the kind. A young man might go there and get a degree and never attend a lecture. More than half of them did that. But whether they passed the examination or attended the lectures, they paid exactly the same fees. The fees, having regard to the class of students, were exorbitant. In the revenues of Trinity College must be included a sum of £122,000 which was given in 1869. From that day to this no account had been given of that money. He wished to know where it had gone. The Roman Catholics of Ireland, forming three-fourths of the population, would not have anything to do with Trinity College. It was a monopolist institution which did not benefit even the class for whom it was intended. It had been converted into an Old Man's Society, and, as it at present stood, it blocked the way of higher education in Ireland. He appealed with confidence to the Chief Secretary to find a remedy for the present state of matters.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, are not used to the best advantage for the promotion of the higher education of the Irish people, and that, in view of the deplorable condition of higher education in Ireland, it is of vital and urgent importance that the control and administration of these large revenues should be so altered as to make them available for the use of the general body of the nation."—(Mr. Duffy.)

MR. CAMPBELL (Dublin University)

thought the House would agree with him that no very great advance towards the solution of the most difficult of all Irish questions—namely, that of University education—was to be hoped for from such a Resolution as this. This question of the administration of Dublin University had already formed the subject of investigation by a Royal Commission and of frequent debate in this House and on each and every occasion there had been a remarkable consensus of opinion in favour of the enlightened policy and wisdom of that administration. The Royal Commission of 1853 found that enormous improvements of an important character had been introduced from time to time by the authorities of Trinity College, that the general state of the University was satisfactory, and that the spirit of improvement had been especially shown in the changes that had been introduced in the course of education to adapt it to the requirements of the age. In the course of a speech on the Second Reading of the Irish Universities' Bill in 1873 Mr. Gladstone, who was then Prime Minister, said he had a strong sentiment of veneration and gratitude for Trinity College, which had done for Ireland a large portion of the good which had been done for her at all; and the late Sir William Harcourt, in the course of the same debate, spoke of Dublin University as one of the most famous Universities of the world and the intellectual eye of Ireland. Mr. Pynn, the then Liberal Member for Dublin, also said that Trinity College had been the one successful institution in Ireland. In the same year, speaking in this House, Mr. William Redmond, who as a Home Ruler represented the City of Wexford, stated that the Roman Catholics of Ireland took pride in the renown of the Dublin University. That was the University of which the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal had spoken to-night. It was the University which so far back as 1794 petitioned the Irish Parliament and obtained through it permission to admit to its degrees the Roman Catholics of Ireland, anticipating by thirty years the occasion when the Imperial Parliament granted Catholic emancipation. In 1873 it came to the Imperial Parliament and obtained the abolition of all tests of every kind within the walls of the University. From that hour to this there was no prize or position of profit, emolument or government within the University, that was not open to all, without distinction, of class or creed. Three of its Fellowships had been held in recent years by members of the Presbyterian Church, and one by a distinguished member of the Roman Catholic Church. In the face of these facts, it was idle for hon. Members from Ireland to come to this House and endeavour, under a Motion of this sort, to obtain a vote in favour of a foundation on a sectarian basis. The hon. Member for South Donegal had said that there were seven senior Fellows who had entrusted to them the management of this institution and that they and the Provost had absorbed £12,000 a year of the funds of the College, but with beautiful Hibernian exaggeration the hon. Gentleman went on to increase that £12,000 to £20,000.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

said that what he had stated was that the senior Fellows got £11,000 odd, the Provost £2,500, and that the expenses of administration amounted to one-third of the income of the College.

MR. J. CAMPBELL

said he did not know by what arithmetic £2,500 and £11,000 produced £20,000. The facts as to the payments to senior Fellows had never been kept back from the House. Returns were furnished year by year until 1874, and one was furnished in 1889. There were seven of those senior Fellows, whose names would enable the House to judge whether they were men who from age or infirmity were unfit to be entrusted with the management of an institution of this sort. They included Professor Williamson, Professor Mahaffy, Professor Tarleton, and Professor Tyrrell, all men with a European reputation for culture and scholarship, all men whose works were to-day the standard textbooks in the particular subjects in which they excelled. After some thirty years of splendid service in the cause of education the seven divided amongst them a sum of £9,900 a year, or an average income of some £1,400 a year, an amount far below what they would have earned had they devoted their abilities to commercial or professional life. It was only within recent years that there was any provision made whereby they could be pensioned. The compensation for the loss of presentation rights on the disestablishment of the Irish Church, about which inquiry had been made, was merged in the general funds of the college, subject to the permission given by a Queen's letter in 1880 to use the income of the fund for the pensioning of Fellows who became incapable of discharging their duties, provided that in no year should these pensions exceed the annual amount of £5,000. The hon. Members ought hardly to grudge to the author of "Who fears to speak of '98," the only gentleman who was in receipt of a pension under that scheme after fifty-three years, the amount he drew of £1,000 a year. It was said that the revenues had not been made available for the bulk of the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland. It was true that many distinguished Roman Catholics had received their education within the walls of Trinity College. It was true that there were on the Irish Bench and in this country many distinguished Roman Catholics who owned much to the education they received there. But it was equally true that the great majority of the Catholic youth of Ireland had not been allowed to avail themselves of the educational benefits the institution offered. Ever since 1873 every distinction, privilege, office, and honour had been open to every Irishman, but in 1869 the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland met in solemn conclave and passed this resolution, from which they had never departed— We condemn the mixed system of education, whether primary, intermediate, or university, as grievously and intrinsically dangerous to the morals of Catholic youth, and we declare that to Catholics only, and under the supreme control of the Church in all things appertaining to faith and morals, can the teaching of Catholics be entrusted. Here was the reason why the advantages of higher education freely offered since 1873 had not been availed of as they might have been. Let those who doubted it read the remarkable and powerful letter published some two months ago by Mr. Michael Davitt, an Irishman and a Catholic, who for twenty years had been a Member of this House, in which he demonstrated that the irreconcilable hostility of the Catholic Bishops had deprived him and his coreligionists of the benefit of University education for half a century. Let the saddle by put on the right horse, and let it not be said that this was due to the intolerance and bigotry of Dublin University. The University had ever been in advance of the age in this matter. This was a question affecting a great and ancient institution; he regretted that so little time was left for discussion, and he would not stand between the House and the Chief Secretary. Speak- ing as an Irishman, and as one proud of his native country, his hope was that the University of Dublin might yet be permitted to become in fact what in name it had been for centuries—the great University where the youth of Ireland could engage in friendly educational rivalry, and while so engaged learn by mutual association abiding sentiments, of toleration and respect truly essential for national prosperity, but which they could not learn while imprisoned in rival sectarian compounds, perpetuating the religious differences of the past which had numbed and paralysed the energy of his countrymen. He hoped the House would lend no favour to an attack on Trinity College as profitless as it was ungenerous.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.),

said it was impossible for him at that late hour to enter upon several of the interesting questions which had been raised and which, had time permitted, he would have gladly dealt with. He would confine himself to the essential points and to a statement of the intentions of the Government. He was rather surprised that the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down should have spoken of a 'crusade" against Trinity College. It seemed to him that the remarks about Trinity College were not couched in any hostile or angry spirit, and he certainly did not put that construction upon them. It seemed to him most natural that hon. Members from Ireland, whatever their religious and political opinions were, should be interested in the welfare of so great an institution, which was an ornament to Dublin and to the whole of Ireland, and should wish that this ancient centre of intellectual life should again fill the place it ought to fill in the intellectual and moral life of the country. The complaints made against the college had not, after all, been very serious. It had been alleged that it was a mistake to have a college and a University governed by a body of eight men all advanced in life, that many Protestants left Ireland to go to Universities elsewhere, and that in some respects the arrangements for awarding Fellowships were not satisfactory. The hon. Member for South Donegal observed that these gentlemen had, at any rate, learned the art of living long. He thought every one's experience would convince him that there was nothing that kept a man so long in life as the possession of a good place from which he was keeping somebody else. The hon. Gentleman complained that Irishmen went to English Universities. The same thing was found in Scotland. The fact was that the English Universities were able to afford inducements which drew people away from smaller and poorer countries. That was a fact in modern life which they regretted, but which it was beyond their power to control. All that Dublin could do was so to arrange her endowments and organise her teaching as always to have a certain number of first-rate men whose presence would attract students from England and Scotland. As to the relation of Trinity College to Roman Catholics, the hon. Member for South Galway was not quite correct in saying that Trinity College had always been strictly Protestant. It was not so in the eighteenth century during the Commonwealth, and then for a considerable period it bade fair to be the centre of Catholic as well as Protestant life. The first period, unfortunately, came to an end at the time of Archbishop Laud, and the second period was about 1795. After that Trinity College, instead of being a meeting place for different schools and parties where young men might form friendships which would have averted political antagonisms, be- came the fortress of one religious sect. Trinity College had not been inquired into since the year 1853, when the last Commission reported. Within that period there had been four Commissions of inquiry into the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and three Commissions of inquiry into the Universities of Scotland. Six new Universities had been founded in England, and there had been a complete revolution in English University life. There had been an increase in the number of students in English Universities from a little over 2,300 in 1865 to 13,000 in the present year. That extraordinary revolution in University life in this country had been accompanied by the inquiries to which he had referred, and by alterations in the statutes and arrangements of the English and Scottish Universities, due to the development of new subjects of study and research. Since 1853, with the partial exception of an inquiry into a particular class of funds in 1878, there had been no inquiry with regard to Trinity College, Dublin. That fact had convinced him that primâ facie there was a strong case for a new inquiry into the arrangements of Trinity College. He thought that case was strengthened by the consideration that the recognition of new studies, especially scientific studies' was not adequate in the Fellowship examinations, that the system of government seemed antiquated, and that there had been some diminution in the number of students as compared with 1880–85. In these circumstances, with no imputation whatever upon Trinity College, against which he did not think any charge ought to be brought, and which had shown itself thoroughly loyal in every respect to the principles which it adopted in 1873, when the Abolition of Tests Act was passed, after all these years. and after all that had been done in England and Scotland, he thought the time had come when there ought to be an inquiry into Trinity College also. He might say he had arrived at that conclusion independently, and should have announced it before long, even if this Motion had not given a proper opportunity for announcing it. The inquiry ought to deal with the revenues of the College, and the manner in which they were applied, the government and the administration of the College and the University, the teaching staff and methods, the system of examinations, and the rewards which successful students obtained. He thought it would necessarily also deal with the method of awarding the Fellowships, and, of course, one would not exclude from the purview of such an inquiry the general consideration of the place which Trinity College occupied in Ireland in the higher education of the country. He thought the inquiry ought to be conducted by a small Commission, which was more likely to be effective for this purpose, and by a non-political Commission, because it would not have any political question to consider, and it ought to act promptly. The last thing he personally desired was to postpone any attempt that any one might make to deal with the Irish University question at large by the creation of another Commission which would last for a long time, take a great deal of evidence, and practically put off the approach of this question for a greater time than any of them desired. After what he had said, he thought he might fairly ask the hon. Member to withdraw his Motion. The object of the hon. Member had been attained; he had given a statement which he trusted would be satisfactory to the hon. Member as regarded the course which the Government proposed to adopt, and he promised him that, as soon as it was possible to institute this inquiry, he would endeavour to do so. He hoped the inquiry, which he had reason to believe would not be unacceptable to the authorities of Trinity College—it was not designed in a hostile spirit to them, and he did not think they would take it in any such spirit—would have the effect of strengthening Trinity College, of improving it in any point in which it was desirable that it should be improved, of enlarging its range and giving it a wider influence on the Irish people, and of enabling it to discharge its duties to the Irish people in a manner worthy of the high standard of teaching it had always maintained, and of the many illustrious names with which it had been associated.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

said it was exceedingly difficult for his colleagues and himself to express in the time at their disposal considered opinion on the speech of the right hon. the Chief Secretary. But he felt bound to say that they viewed with the most intense distrust the appointment of Commissions, and were it not for the concluding words of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he said his intention was that it should be a small Commission to meet at once and to report rapidly on a limited reference, he could not have advised his hon. friend, as he did now, to withdraw his Motion. As the same time he must safeguard himself by saying that without further examination, and without knowing a little more about the exact reference to the Commission, and something about those who were to be appointed upon it, he could take no responsibility for it whatever.

SIR EDWARD CARSON (Dublin University)

said that if it was meant by referring the question to a Commission to turn Trinity College into a different kind of University for the purpose of satisfying sectarian ambition in Ireland, he feared that the right hon. Gentleman's scheme would not be acceptable to Trinity College. Of course, however, it was impossible, until one saw the scheme, to express an opinion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.