§ The Earl of Harrowbylaid on the table a copy of the Report of the Committee on the State of Ireland.
The Earl of Darnleysaid, he could not suffer the report to be laid on the table, or the session to close, without some observations. As a member of the committee he had concurred in the Report; for it certainly contained many useful suggestions, on several of the minor points of the inquiry. On the great and important subject, however, which he must always consider paramount to every other, and without a settlement of which all other attempts to ameliorate the condition of Ireland would be ineffectual, the committee had abstained from offering any opinion. In that also he had acquiesced, from a conviction that the members of the committee could never come to any agreement on the subject. He must, however, take that opportunity to repeat the opinion which every day's experience more and more confirmed, that, sooner or later, the claims of the Roman Catholics must be conceded, and that without a settlement of that question, Ireland never could be permanently tranquil, prosperous, or happy. He deeply lamented the rejection of the bill lately sent up by the Commons, and could not help expressing his surprise and regret, to see the noble earl at the head of the government assume, on that occasion, a more decided tone of opposition to the measure than he had ever before manifested; and he was the more astonished by the noble earl's speech, from his knowledge of the attention which had been paid by that noble lord to the evidence given before the committee. Let not the noble earl suppose, however, that his opinion, or the decision of the House itself; had put the question at rest. A popular cry had been raised in England; and, as far as England only was concerned, the question might be supposed set at rest: but, far different was the case in Ireland, the part of the empire most interested in the decision. In that country, so far from the question having been set at rest, it was becoming, not so much a Catholic, as a national question. The Protestants of Ireland were impressed with a daily increasing conviction, that they were, if possible, more interested in the settlement of it, than the Catholics themselves.
The Earl of Liverpoolsaid, that though it was irregular to refer to the sources in which his opinion was to be found, if the noble earl did refer to them he would find that he had not expressed a stronger opinion this session on the Catholic question than on former occasions. With respect to any recommendation on the subject to which the noble lord had alluded from the committee, it would have been contrary to all practice. The business of the committee was to report information.