Sitting of 24 April 1845

MINUTERS.
BILLS. Public.—Reported.—Colonial Passengers; Museums of Art.
Private.—1°. Gravesend and Rochester Railway.
Reported.—Nottingham Inclosure; Huddersfield Waterworks; Surrey and Sussex Roads (Sunday Tolls); Glasgow and Shotts' Road.
3°. and passed:—Shclsley Road; London Orphan Asylum; Liverpool Docks.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By several hon. Members, from a great number of places (166 Petitions), against the Grant to Maynooth College.—By Mr. Milnes, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Wawn, fram several places, in favour of the Grant to Maynooth College—By Mr. Bouverie, from Kilmarnock, against Infeftment (Scotland) and Heritable Securities (Scotland) Bills.—By Sir P. Egerton, from Chester, for Exempting Salt Factories from the Smoke Prohibition Bill.

RAILWAYS REGULATIONS—COMMITTEES.
Lord G. Somersetmoved the following Resolution:—
"That every Committee on a Railway Bill shall fix the Tolls, and shall determine the maximum rates of charge for the conveyance of passengers (with a due amount of luggage) and of goods on such Railway; and such rates of charge shall include the Tolls, and the costs of locomotive power and every other expense connected with the conveyance of passengers (with a due amount of luggage) and of goods upon such Railway; but if the Committee shall not deem it expedient to determine such maximum rates of charge, a special Report, explanatory of the grounds of their omitting so to do, shall be made to the House, which special Report shall accompany the Report of the Bill."
Mr. Laboucheresaid, that seeing the course which railway proceedings were perhaps necessarily taking, and that the public were day by day getting more and more into the hands of a few powerful companies, it was absolutely necessary that some means should be devised of placing a check upon their power of monopoly, and he was very glad that this Resolution had been proposed for the purpose.
Mr. Hawesexpressed a wish that if Committees were to be required to conform to this Resolution, the House should instruct them by what means they were to accomplish that task, for all the elements upon which the Committees were to calculate the maximum of charge must be furnished by the companies themselves, and Committees would have no other means of estimating what ought to be the maximum. He held this notice to be utterly useless, and, because useless, unwise. So strongly did he hold that opinion, that if he had the least chance of success, he should take the sense of the House upon the question.
Sir G. Clerktought the Resolution would be beneficial, and that it would meet with a ready acquiescence from railway companies themselves, as in fact some companies had voluntarily inserted clauses in their Bills fixing a maximum of charge.
Mr. Gisbornethought that unless the House of Commons were prepared to abandon all attempts at placing a limit on the charges of railway companies, they must adopt some course such as that now proposed; but at the same time he trusted much more to the principle of competition
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than to the efficacy of this or any similar Resolution; and, although he would not oppose the noble Lord's Motion, he hoped the House would not adopt any measure which could have the effect of discouraging that spirit of competition which was the best security for justice to the public.
Mr. S. Wortleythought the Resolution would be a more effectual protection to the public if words were introduced to establish not only a maximum of charge, but also a proper proportion between the rates of passenger and goods traffic. He moved an amendment to insert the words, "Such railway, and the proportion to be observed between such rules of charge respectively."
Mr. Aglionbysaid he should give his cordial support to the present and every other proposition calculated to guard the public against what he considered the extreme powers of railway companies. He hoped some measure would be introduced to check the injustice which was committed by some companies, who, while they consulted the convenience and the pockets of long and wealthy passengers, utterly neglected the wants of the intermediate and poorer travellers.
Lord G. Somersethoped the House would not agree with the Amendment, but adopt the original Resolution.
Sir George Greysaid, that however important the Amendment might be, as it was brought forward without due notice, it should be postponed for some future occasion.
Amendment withdrawn. Original Resolution agreed to.

TREASURY CORRESPONDENCE.
Sir C. Napierwished to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury whether two letters, which had appeared in one of the public papers, in reference to Maynooth, were genuine or not? If the House would permit him, he would read them. They ran as follows:—
(No. 1.)
"MR. YOUNG, M.P., TO CAPTAIN MEYNELL, M.P.
"Dear Meynell — Pray come up. Peel wants every Tory vote. If we havn't a majority of our own on the second reading, it will be as much as my place is worth. D—n Lisburne. Fitzroy votes; Pringle cuts; and old Forbes Mackenzie, who has been vapouring at the Carlton that he should vote—perhaps against, certainly not for us—has just been with me to say that he had been thinking

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a great deal on the subject, and should vote with us. He pretended he didn't know that Pringle had resigned. Oh yes! Kelly is going to rat too. I hope he won't be sold. For God's sake come up and vote.
"Yours ever,
"Treasury, Wednesday.
"J. YOUNG."
(No. 2.)
"CAPTAIN MEYNELL, M.P., TO MR. YOUNG, M.P.
"Dear Young—Peel and all of you may be d—d before I come up to vote for Maynooth. Because Fitzroy, and Mackenzie, and Kelly are rogues, that is no reason why I should be.
"Yours ever,
"Windsor, Thursday.
H. MEYNELL."
He would like to know whether these letters were genuine?
[No answer, but much laughter, was vouchsafed to this question. The letters, it was understood, were fabrications.]

MONSTER MEETINGS.
Colonel Vernerwished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland whether the Government was aware of a great demonstration which was fixed to take place at Dundalk, on Thursday next, the 1st of May, on which occasion Mr. O'Connell was expected to be present? Invitations had been circulated, particularly throughout Ulster, calling on the people to assemble on the occasion, for the purpose of escorting that Gentleman (Mr. O'Connell) to the place of meeting. He wished to know whether it were the intention of the Government to put a stop to this meeting, in accordance with the sentiments expressed by the Law Officers of the Crown with regard to meetings of this description? He had to apologize to the right hon. Gentleman for not having made him acquainted with his intention of bringing forward this matter. Had he had sufficient time, he would have given the right hon. Gentleman due notice of his question.
Sir Thomas Fremantleobserved that as he had received no previous notice of the question, he was not prepared to answer it. He had had no communication from Ireland on the subject himself; and, with reference to what might pass in Ireland, there was no doubt the Lord Lieutenant would take such steps as the occasion required, if any such steps became necessary.
Mr. Humewished to ask the right hon. Baronet if he was aware of a monster meeting which was to take place in London on the 30th of this month, at which
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delegates were to assemble from all parts of the country, to come down and coerce the Members of that House on the subject of the grant to Maynooth? The Anti-Maynooth Committee in London were calling upon every town and district in which a petition against the grant had been got up, to appoint delegates to come up to London, so as to form a demonstration which might have some effect upon that House; as their petitions had failed to have any effect whatever. He begged to ask the right hon. Baronet whether he meant to take any steps to prevent such a demonstration?
Sir T. Fremantlethought that he might make the same answer to that as to the former question.
Sir R. Peelwould give the same answer as he had given to a former question that evening, that, as he had not had any notice of the question, he was unprepared with a reply. He would state, however, to soothe the apprehensions of the hon. Gentleman, that he (Sir R. Peel) did not feel at all alarmed.

MAYNOOTH COLLEGE — ADJOURNED DEBATE.
On the Order of the Day for renewing the Adjourned Debate on Maynooth College,
Mr. Monckton Milnespresented a petition from the University of Cambridge, in favour of the grant.
Sir R. H. Inglissaid, that this was a misnomer in respect to the petition just presented to the House, in so far as he had heard it stated that it was from the University of Cambridge. If it were so, he apprehended it was properly signed and stamped with the seal of the University. As a petition emanating from the University, it purported to be a petition signed by the chancellor, masters, and scholars, and no petition not so signed and sealed could be considered as a petition from the University of Cambridge.
Mr. Monckton Milnessaid, he would have properly explained the nature of the petition, if his hon. Friend had only permitted him to finish. The petition presented was from members of the University of Cambridge, and signed by a considerable number of bachelors and under-graduates of the University. The petitioners stated that a petition similarly signed had been presented to the House by the hon. Member for Cambridge against the Bill; and that they thought it their duty to state

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their cordial assent to, and approbation of the measure. They further stated that they saw no immediate prospect of the Irish Roman Catholics becoming proselytes to the Established Church; and thought it their duty to advance the moral and religious development of that nation, without violating the principle of their hereditary creed. They also stated that the religious acrimony which now existed in Ireland necessarily prevented the waging of proper theological controversy, and had done much to retard reconciliation in feeling, if not in faith, between the two rival communions in Ireland.
Mr. Colquhounhoped the House would allow him to refer to a personal matter relative to himself, which had been raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield in his speech last night, in the course of which the hon. Member took notice of some expressions made use of by him some time ago, which the hon. Member said were very fallacies and great inaccuracies with reference to certain historical facts. The hon. Member said, that he had uttered these expressions nine years ago, and he called upon him to retract or defend them. Now, he should be quite inexcusable if he attempted to take up the time of the House by going at length into these matters, for it was not in the House that he should presume to occupy any time on any such a topic; but he might be allowed to say that it was probable there were sentiments in that speech which maturer information might induce him to qualify. It would be hard if he alone were debarred from the privilege of reflection; if he were not to derive any advantage from that communication with others which was usually found to mitigate one's own opinions, and induce men to adopt something from the opinions of others, by showing how much sincerity there might be in the contrary opinions, how much was due to others, and how much respect one ought to cherish for the opinions of others. So much for that part of the matter. But as to the historical facts, the hon. Gentleman had specified two, in regard to which the hon. Member stated that he (Mr. Colquhoun) was wrongly informed. He should not occupy the time of the House by defending himself with respect to these two facts; but he had brought down two volumes, which he would put into the hon. Member's hands, and in them he would see the grounds of his assertions. One of them was a life of Wolfe Tone, the agent of the Roman Catholics at
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that time, who occupied the same position, in many respects, as Mr. O'Connell at present—["No, no!"] At all events, Wolfe Tone was a high authority on a question with respect to his own times, and to transactions in which he bore a share. The other was the work of Messrs. M'Nevin and Emmett, recording facts of which they had cognizance. He thought, if he remembered correctly, that some of the facts he had stated in that speech were taken from the works of these competent authorities, and he left it to the hon. Member to dispose of them, not there, but elsewhere, as he pleased. It would be trifling with the time of the House, on a question affecting the future destination of Ireland, if he occupied them with explanations of opinions uttered nine years ago, which might, perhaps, be as worthless as the hon. Gentleman represented them. There was one expression of opinion made use of by the hon. Gentleman in his speech last night, and made in the frank manner his opinions generally were expressed in — namely, that though this was not a part of the Maynooth measure, yet it had so much bearing on that measure, that he and his Friends were right in discussing the one with the other. In that he concurred with the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman stated last night enough to show that the question of the Maynooth Bill had a most immediate connexion with the question of the Irish Church; and he could not help observing how delicately handled this fact was, and how noble Lords and hon. Gentlemen seemed afraid to touch it, as though it had been a sort of red hot bar laid down before the Treasury Bench for them to perform evolutions over, but not to come in contact with, lest it should set fire to their arguments. The noble Lord the Member for Lynn said, that the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) had proved to demonstration that there was no principle in this Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that as to the principle of establishing the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the opponents of this measure argued that principle because of their lack of argument touching the question; and he went on to say that they ought not to enter on that question, for that the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church was in the dark future. That was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's argument. Now, he must say, he thought that in the intervals of finance his right hon. Friend must have been reading Milton, and that he meant

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that kind of future which was "dark with excess of light," and whose revealed form was exceedingly clear to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. The hon. Member for Sheffield said, that the principle of the Maynooth Bill was to establish a Roman Catholic institution, to be followed in due time by the permanent endowment of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not deny that to be the case. The noble Lord the Member for London (Lord J. Russell) said, that was the principle of the measure. The First Lord of the Treasury said, that there was no religious objection on his part to endow the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the only question being whether the Roman Catholic Church would accept the endowment. Now, he was not acquainted with the views of the Roman Catholic priests of Ireland. The right hon. and learned Member for Dungarvon (Mr. Sheil) could expound those views better than he could; and the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said, that if they offered as an endowment to these men half a million, to be paid quarterly, why should they refuse it? They might have objections; but they would put those objections into one pocket and the money into the other, whenever they were offered an endowment. If the only objection, therefore, in the right hon. Baronet's mind was whether the Roman Catholic Church would accept an endowment, he thought that could be no obstacle. But how did this question of the hon. Member for Sheffield's Amendment bear more particularly on the question of the Irish Church? He had listened last night to the speech of the right hon. Home Secretary with that admiration with which he generally listened to him, and he was quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman spoke sincerely. He was sure that, having made sacrifices for the Established Church of Ireland on account of his opinions, the right hon. Gentleman, when he said he retained those opinions, spoke with sincerity. He was quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not on any consideration wave those objections to the spoliation of the Irish Church on account of which he had formerly left office; but while he relied entirely on the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity, he questioned his sagacity; and he could not help expressing his surprise that any one so fully informed as the right hon. Gentleman was, could think of giving an endowment to the Roman Catholic Church, and suppose that
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he would be able to maintain for five years longer the establishment of Protestantism in Ireland; that he would be able to maintain in that country that which would be a sort of theological prize-fight, setting one Church against the other, one calling the other heretic, and the other retorting that the adversary was wholly immersed in error; and this to be done too for the sake of peace, and for the sake of the moral welfare of the country! Did they think that the people of England, who, whatever else they might be deficient in, had ever been remarkable for plain, sound sense, would bear this state of things for five years? If things took that posture, they would say to Parliament—" If you will have the Protestant Church, put down the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church; if you will have the Roman Catholic Church established, then put down the Protestant Establishment." The hon. Member for Sheffield said, that the Established Church of Ireland had a revenue of above 650,000 l. a year. Now, it was quite certain that the Roman Catholic Church would require as much for its endowment. If so, did they think that the people of England would submit to be taxed to the amount of half a million to pay the Roman Catholic priests, when there were funds on the other side of St. George's Channel which they could lay hold of? He did not think that there was any one, who looked only to the language of the petitions which had been presented on this question, that could think we should be able to maintain two rival Establishments in that country. His own opinion was, that it was impossible to maintain such an anomaly; and he thought that it was most incoherent that the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) should state that his opinions respecting the Establishment in Ireland remained unchanged, when he was arguing in favour of a course of policy which must subvert the Established Church in Ireland. But what was the pressing argument used by the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Treasury as a reason why he adopted this course? He said it was because we must conciliate the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said, "I grant this as a boon." What a boon of conciliation! What was there on which the Roman Catholics had spoken more freely than on the subject of the Establishment? They were represented in that House by the right hon. Member for Dungarvon (Mr. Sheil), and he had been most explicit; and

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he had said that of all the mischiefs, of all the most monstrous anomalies that could be found in any country, the Irish Church was the greatest. If, then, they were going to give a boon of conciliation to the Roman Catholics—if that was their course of policy—they must be prepared to eradicate the Established Church of Ireland. He very much wished it was within the Orders of the House to call for a celebrated speech to be read. If it were so, he would call for a speech made by the right hon. Member for Dungarvon in 1833, or 1834, or 1835, or 1836, in which the right hon. Gentleman, with all the strength of his eloquent vocabulary, denounced the Established Church of Ireland, and told the House there would be no peace in Ireland till it was extinguished. As the right hon. Gentleman seemed to dissent, he would refresh the right hon. Gentleman's memory. On the 23rd of July, 1835, the right hon. Gentleman said—
"It is the self-same question by which Cabinet after Cabinet has been annihilated, of which the Catholic question was but a part. It is the struggle for complete political equality on the part of the overwhelming majority on the one hand, and for political ascendancy on the part of a minority on the other. Can that ascendancy be maintained?"
Subsequently, in the same speech, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Church of Ireland as
"The Church of the minority—the Church from which no imaginable benefit can henceforward flow; but whence evils after evils in such continuous abundance have been derived."
In another of his speeches the right hon. Gentleman said—
"It is stated that the Church cements the Union. At this moment it disturbs the foundation of the Legislature, brings both Houses of Parliament into collision, and to the centre shakes the Constitution."
Now, if the endowment of Catholicism in Ireland was the avowed policy of the Government, they must be prepared for coming, and that speedily, to the measure which was consequent on their policy; namely, to the complete extinction of the Established Church of Ireland. He marvelled that the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) could be insensible of the inevitable necessity of that consequence. Some hon. Gentlemen might remember the words used last Session by the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, which struck his mind as expressing
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the possible policy of the Government on this very question he was now referring to. The hon. Member for Sheffield had referred to a passage in a speech of the right hon. Baronet's, wherein he dealt with the question of compact; but a more remarkable passage had escaped the hon. Member's attention, which was worthy of the notice of the House. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Thinking it infinitely safer to stand upon the compact settled by Parliament"—if the right hon. Gentleman had stopped there, there would not have been anything to complain of; but then came the saving clause—"unless an overwhelming necessity of public policy compelled him to change his opinion, he should adhere to it." What guarantee was there for the Established Church in that? Was it not perfectly plain, that on the first pressure which the right hon. Baronet could construe as a necessity of State policy, away in one sweep would go the Irish Church, that Church for which the right hon. Baronet's supporters had been so long contending, for which they had struggled so long in perfect union, and which now, it seemed, rested on so precarious a ground as the contingency of the right hon. Baronet's opinion changing? This was a plank laid by which any man on the Ministerial side of the House who liked might pass over and join with the hon. Members for Montrose, and Sheffield, and Dungarvon, in their propositions for utterly sweeping away the Irish Establishment. Now, he was not saying whether the Irish Establishment were good or bad, but he begged the House to observe how this Maynooth question brought on the Ministry a pressure both from England and from Ireland, which he must be a bold man who would resist; but which the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) was prepared to yield to, provided it were raised to the height of an overwhelming political necessity. Some remarks had fallen from the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), and the hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Roebuck), which he confessed he had listened to last night with unwilling attention; for with great surprise and with great regret he had heard the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) make the appeal to Parliament to which those remarks alluded—an appeal which struck his mind as not being wise, not prudent, in the First Minister of the Crown to make, as he had done, when he pointed on the one hand to the domestic difficulties he had to contend against in Ireland and

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the strong combination of the party there who wished to dissolve the Union between the two countries; and then, two sentences further on, spoke of the dark and threatening cloud on the other side of the Atlantic, which he looked on, he said, with some apprehension. The right hon. Baronet's words were, "I own to you when I was called on to make that declaration, I did reflect with comfort and consolation that I had sent that night a message of peace to Ireland." The right hon. Baronet in that speech seemed to speak as if we were negotiating with a hostile nation, when he spoke of having sent a message of peace to Ireland. If it was right, if it was wise to establish on firm foundations the College of Maynooth, let them do it because it was right; let them do it, because in their strong, calm, deliberate convictions, they regarded it as a measure of conciliation to Ireland which it was desirable to pass; but let them not tell him that Conciliation Hall was to subdue his judgment, and make him acquiesce in a measure which he condemned. In France, what did they infer but that this was a concession to our terrors? If, however, such evils as the right hon. Gentleman hinted at did arise; if there came a war with America, or if difficulties with France arose, he reposed confidence in the noble Earl who was at the head of the Foreign Affairs of the country, and he had great confidence in the First Lord of the Treasury, and he was perfectly certain that all sections of the House would rally round the right hon. Baronet, and assist him in taking that course which was due to English honour and English interests; and if power should pass into the hands of the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), though he differed from the noble Lord, and had opposed him through his whole course in Parliament, and probably should continue to oppose him through the whole course of his political life; yet he had ever done the noble Lord justice, and he thought the noble Lord would be unworthy of his position in the House of Commons, and of that great historical name which he bore, if the affairs of this country were placed in his hands, and he said to his hon. Friend near him (Sir R. Inglis), "We can't overcome your convictions—we can't subdue your reason, and now that war is threatening in the west, and there is a movement in Ireland, I appeal to your fears;" there would be but one answer in all parts of the country—the humblest yeoman would rather submit to the work of a soldier than allow the slightest tarnish
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to be cast on the honour of England. He regretted, therefore, that such an argument should have fallen from the First Minister of the Crown, for there were those who would know how it could be used. How had it, in fact, been used already? In the Freeman's Journal, the organ of the Irish Roman Catholic priesthood, he found that statement had been already seized and made use of as an incentive to fresh agitation; and when the right hon. Baronet spoke of the manner in which this his measure had been received in Ireland—when the right hon. Baronet told them what golden opinions it had won, what gratitude his measure had excited, and he turned to that organ of the Irish priesthood, and found that the language in which they spoke was to this effect — "That England yielded this great measure, this great boon!—no, but this paltry civility, in agony, and that the concession had been wrung from her, not by cringing, but by agitation;"—if that were a correct expression of the gratitude of the Irish Catholics, he was afraid they had little to expect from the boon they were now conferring—a boon which, as he said before, involved further and greater concessions. Those who supported the grant to Maynooth ought to be prepared for an attack upon the Irish Church—an attack which he had no doubt his right hon. Friend would have still the courage and the virtue to resist, but under which others would succumb. Some hon. Gentlemen on the other side complained of the union which existed on this question among all classes of Protestant Dissenters; and the hon. Member for Sheffield said that if they took 25,000 l. from the Irish Church, that would have a great effect in assuaging the hostility against this measure. But the hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken if he supposed their opposition was grounded on so mercenary a principle. The opposition of the Dissenters was perfectly clear. They saw what the House was going on to do—they saw that the House was going on to the establishment of a Roman Catholic Church; and they objected to that on account of the voluntary principle which they advocated, and also their dissent in religion, which many held most conscientiously. And when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvon referred to the Free Kirk of Scotland, and complained so bitterly of their opposition, the right hon. Gentleman would allow him to remind him of the grounds upon which that part of the Presbyterian Church separated

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itself from the Kirk. Was it not because the Members of that Kirk came to that House and claimed certain powers which (the House) refused them? The House would not grant them that supremacy which the Members of the Free Kirk demanded; and they said that if the House went on to establish a Roman Catholic Church in perfect supremacy, they would give to that Church what they had refused to them. Upon that ground, if there were no other, the Free Church and Dissenters were opposed to this measure. But the hon. Member for Sheffield took up various petitions, cited their language, and said, "Did you ever hear such language—such extravagant ideas?" But were they to pare and cut down the mechanics and yeomen of England to their views of what was right in the language of petitions? Were they to say to honest men coming with their petitions drawn up in their own simple and rude phraseology, that those petitions should not come before the House expressed in that language? And when the hon. Member for Sheffield objected to the speeches that were delivered at public meetings against this measure, the hon. Member must allow him to say, that if those petitioners were to retaliate, they might find many speeches which had been delivered at meetings held upon this great question by many hon. Members opposite; speeches delivered at Covent-garden Theatre, which would not bear the closest examination, containing very strong opinions in not very nice phraseology; and, when the hon. Gentleman made an attack upon an hon. Friend of his for taking the chair at one of those meetings, he must say, it would be a strange thing if the chairman of a meeting was held responsible for all the language made use of there. If that were the case, they must shut up public meetings altogether; but, when his hon. Friend was afflicted with an infirmity of which the hon. Gentleman must be aware, to bring against him a charge so severe was passing the bounds of courtesy. He knew that on that occasion they had been accused of a strange union; and his hon. Friend (Sir R. Inglis) had been charged with finding himself in a curious conjunction with some hon. Members on the other side of the House, who entertained upon most points very opposite opinions from his hon. Friend; but if that were the case, he should like to know whether there were not also some very curious conjunctions on the other side, and whether in the other lobby there might not have struck the eye
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of those who took the last division some conjunctions which must have almost excited a smile? For example, suppose the noble Lord the Chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, when he passed the defile by which they moved from one part of the lobby to the other, had been found leaning on the arm of the hon. Member for Coventry; or, suppose they had found the hon. Member for Montrose, with that firm, inflexible resolution which he always evinced, followed out at a little interval by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and wedged between them the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newark, into whose ecclesiastical ear the hon. Member for Sheffield was pouring his voluntary suggestions; or let them observe the grave and measured, step of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvon following him and entertaining him with eloquent promises of future peace in Ireland; and he thought if the right hon. Baronet passed that defile, and saw in the lobby before him many familiar faces of friends who used to adhere to him in the wintry days of his adversity, but whose principles he was afraid the right hon. Baronet had now cast off in this the hour of Ministerial prosperity, as he receded from that step he would hear a voice more familiar than welcome cheering him to advance before the noble Lord the Member for London. He perfectly well knew to what the hon. Member for Sheffield invited them by this Motion; but he would say to the hon. Member as he had ever said, that it was a road upon which on no consideration would he ever tread. To the Irish Church, on the grounds of principle and policy, he was inviolably attached, and be the difficulties or the lapses from principle what thee might, he at least would always pursue the same course to which he was directed, not by prejudice or passion, but by sober conviction. When he heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh's eloquent speech on the previous evening, and listened to the sketches he gave of the past history of Ireland, and when he heard the hon. Member for Sheffield allude to the condition of the Church in that country in past times, he could not help thinking of one of those remarkable words by which Mr. O'Connell often appealed to the passions of his Irish audience—a word in which he denominated all who opposed him in Ireland or here as "Saxons." It was said that national songs were a sure mark of national feeling, and they would

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find that same word "Saxon" occurring frequently in the songs which were circulating at that time in every part of Ireland. It could not be doubted—it was impossible to deny it—that Saxons, as Mr. O'Connell called them, English and Scotch, had occupied Ireland by successive invasions, and planted their feet on the Celtic soil; and that the conduct of those foreign landlords—for such they were—was anything but politic or wise; they kept down the Irish Celt by cruel laws, inflicted upon him fresh and rigorous restrictions, and took no means for his moral and social elevation; and as to the Irish Church being, as was stated by the right hon. Gentleman, a Church fed by wealth, it was a Church starved to absolute inanition up to the last fifty years, ["Oh, oh!"] It was perfectly true; it was starved to absolute inanition by the same selfishness of the same landed proprietors. Did they deny it? Let them read the letters of Sir Henry Sydney, the despatches of Lord Strafford, and the correspondence of Primate Boulter; and then they would discover that the Church was in a dilapidated and neglected state. But there came a better time — when men were awakened to a consciousness of their duty, and laymen and ecclesiastics remembered the duties they had to perform. The Established Church, as the hon. Member for Sheffield said, came at last into a better and more wholesome condition. The hon. Gentleman traced it to the Motions brought forward by the hon. Member for Montrose; but the fact was, that in the last twenty years the Irish Church had been placed in a state of efficiency for the discharge of those great social and moral duties to which, as he contended, it was before incompetent. Hon. Members on the other side denied that proposition. He respected their opinions, but he maintained his own; and he said, that if they wanted a link between that which was the great evil of Ireland—two opposite races, Saxons and Celts, they could not have a better link than the labours of men of zeal, education, and unwearied charity, discharging their duties in the heart of a wild and turbulent populace. If he were asked for a proof, he need not go into long documents, but would state one case to the House, and leave them to judge what must be the effect of a hundred such examples on a rude people. He recollected being in a parish near the residence of the hon. Member for Bandon, a large and scattered parish, in which there were both Protestants and Roman Catholics;
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but the Protestants were collected on one side of it, whilst the Catholics were numerously spread over the wide district; and he remembered accompanying the clergyman of that parish, who was now a dignitary of the Irish Church, owing his promotion to the wise selection of Lord De Grey—a man far advanced in years, and who had spent his whole life in that remote spot—over a part of the parish where they were all Roman Catholics; and he could not help remarking the manner in which he was received. The peasants desisted from their labours, and children and parents all came to welcome him with a smile. In that instance, true Catholicity had triumphed over all divisions of sects and races, and had welded together discordant creeds—the Saxon and the Celt—in bonds of a true and enduring attachment; but if they destroyed such links as those, then he said, not only would it be dangerous to the best civilization of Ireland, but the future prosperity of that country would be dark indeed. It was upon those grounds—not upon the grounds of compact—not upon the Articles of Union — but upon those moral principles, that conviction of past advantages, that he still based, and had ever based his maintenance of the Irish Church. From that maintenance he would never swerve. Let parties be broken up; let Prime Ministers abandon their recorded principles, he would, at least, be true to his; and he would appeal, if not to the aristocracy, at least to the democracy of England, on this great struggle for the best interests of Ireland; and would maintain those principles which were valuable, not for their enthusiasm, but the cool and sober deliberation on which they were founded; and, upon these grounds, he should give to the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield his most strenuous opposition. One word upon what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet, on the Motion of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge. The right hon. Baronet had mistaken that Motion. The right hon. Baronet had accused his right hon. Friend of trying to throw out this measure by combining with hon. Gentlemen on the other side. If they had wished such combination, was it not competent for them, on the Motion the Speaker was about to put, to say "No," and then to find themselves in perfectly legitimate combination with hon. Gentlemen opposite? But then what would become of the majority on that (the Ministerial) side? It would be converted into a minority. If, therefore, such

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a combination had been wished, it would have been easy; but that was not the object of his right hon. Friend. Had it not been for the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield, his right hon. Friend's Motion would have been brought forward before, because it was their intention to meet every step of this measure with their most strenuous opposition; and they only abandoned that intention in this instance because they did not wish to combine with the hon. Gentleman. His right hon. Friend meant to meet that in the Committee with a negative which he could not do then, on the Motion for the Speaker's leaving the Chair; and, with a fair and legitimate combination with hon. Members, whether on the other side or not, while they objected to Roman Catholic institutions and the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church, they would not abandon one hair's breadth or iota of the Irish Church property.
Captain Batesonsaid: Entertaining as I do, Sir, the strongest objections to this Bill, and deeply regretting that Her Majesty's Ministers should have thought it their duty to introduce such a measure, I had intended to have addressed a few words to the House on the second reading of the Bill, for the purpose of recording my solemn protest against a measure which I consider fraught with such disastrous consequences to my country; but after the very able and eloquent speeches I have heard delivered against the Bill by hon. Members on this side of the House, and after their eloquence having failed to deter Her Majesty's Ministers from proceeding with the Bill, it would have been great presumption in me to think that any observations falling from so young a Member of this House as myself, could have any influence. I therefore gave a silent vote against the Bill. But, Sir, upon this occasion, as an Irish Protestant, and as a member of the Established Church in that country, I feel impelled by every sense of duly to raise my feeble voice against so monstrous, so iniquitous a proposition as that of the hon. Member for Sheffield. I am opposed to it on account of my Church, which I love and revere, and which I shall always be found prepared to defend from spoliation. I am opposed to it on account of its gross injustice. Why, Sir, I consider I should have just as much right to come down to this House and propose that the property of the hon. Member for Sheffield
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should be confiscated and applied for the education of the Roman Catholic priesthood, as that he should venture to make the Motion he has this evening submitted to the House. I am opposed to it on grounds of public policy; for it is my sincere and firm conviction that the Church of Ireland is the great bond of union between the two countries, and that her downfal—for downfal must follow spoliation—would be speedily followed by that separation which the Repeal cry and agitation have vainly endeavoured to accomplish. We have lately heard a great deal about compact in reference to Maynooth College; but will not those hon. Members recognise the compact which was entered into for the preservation of the Irish Church at the time of the Union, and which was renewed and confirmed at the time of the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill? I maintain that the faith of Parliament is pledged to support the Irish Church intact and inviolate; and even had she no firmer basis upon which to rest her claims than that of compact, I maintain that her title is unquestionable—undefeasible. We have heard much during the past week of the generosity and liberality of this grant to Maynooth College—we have heard it lauded by hon. Members on both sides of the House; but I trust that this liberality will not be all one—sided, and that the right hon. Baronet at the head of Her Majesty's Government will not overlook the claims of the Presbyterians of Ulster. They have been driven out from their College by the Unitarians, and are now anxious to found a College for the education of their ministers. I trust the right hon. Baronet will take their case into his favourable consideration, and will give them such pecuniary assistance as will enable them to accomplish their object. Parliament has added concession to concession—has founded a Roman Catholic College, and is now about to endow it permanently with a large additional grant, and has removed all restrictions from it. You have passed the Charitable Bequests Act—the Irish Church has been deprived of a quarter of her revenues—all this for the sake of conciliation. And what has been gained? Only increased demand; for concession is the parent of demand. Why, Sir, have we not been told in this House—have not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvon, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cork told us distinctly,

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even before this Bill had been read a second time, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland will never be satisfied until they are admitted to all the privileges of Trinity College, Dublin — an institution founded by a Protestant Queen, and endowed with Protestant money. We have heard our prelates and our clergy calumniated, and spoken of in language which I shall not venture to repeat. I assert that they have been most grossly maligned. I have no hesitation in saying that a more pious, more learned, or more charitable body of men does not exist in the universe. Prelates and curates alike excel in learning and in divinily, as they are indefatigable in the performance of their duties, and are bright examples of the purity of their Church. Have we not daily instances of Irish clergymen being invited to cures and benefices in this country, which fully attests the truth of my statement? But, Sir, I own I feel great satisfaction and confidence when I consider that the Irish Church has already weathered many a storm—has passed through many trials, and like refined gold has each time exhibited herself in all the lustre of her sterling purity and truth. And I feel assured that the hon. Member for Sheffield, however great his talents—however great his eloquence, will be greatly mistaken if he thinks he can conjure up the evil spirit of appropriation insufficient strength to prevail against the Established Church of Ireland, or that this House would give its sanction to a proposition which (leaving all other considerations out of the question) is calculated to endanger the peace, the welfare, and stability of this great Empire. We have been told, Sir—
"That the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country, that the Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe out that foul spot, than they would, even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church along-side of it."
We have been told—
"That we have every thing Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been permanent in the country—a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique—Protestant Judges, who have polluted the seats of justice—Protestant magistrates, before whom the Catholic peasant could not hope for justice."
We have been told—
"That Ireland has not only Protestant but exterminating landlords; and more than that,
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a Protestant soldiery, who, at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, had butchered and killed a Catholic peasant, even in the presence of his widowed mother."
Now, Sir, as an Irishman, as a Protestant magistrate, as a Protestant landlord, and as a Protestant soldier, I repudiate and deny in the strongest and most emphatic terms the English language will admit of, such unfounded, such calumnious, and such unchristian assertions. We have been told that these assertions are facts—notorious facts. But will any hon. Member get up in this House and tell me that these accusations are true? I will tell that hon. Member (Mr. Bright) whether he be Protestant—whether he be Catholic—whether he be Unitarian—or whether he belong to the Society of Friends, that I challenge him to the proof. I dare him—I defy him to prove them. I have spoken of the Society of Friends—I mean no disrespect to that Society—but I believe Members of that Society are accustomed to plain language from their early childhood; the notorious facts I have just read to the House are couched in plain language, and no hon. Member can be surprised if I give them a plain denial—a plain contradiction. We know, Sir, that this Society disowns such of its members as commit violent acts; and I cannot think that they can acknowledge one who could give utterance to such sentiments—sentiments alike devoid of that fraternal love and Christian charity which society holds to be amongst her first duties. Before I sit down, Sir, allow me to thank the House most sincerely for their kind indulgence on the present occasion.
Mr. F. T. Baringfeared if he did not state his views upon the question, the vote he was about to give might be liable to much misconstruction; he was, therefore, desirous that the House should bear with him for a short time, while he explained the grounds upon which he was prepared to prefer the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Robert Peel) to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield; and he felt the more compelled to crave this indulgence at the hands of the House, inasmuch as his right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, in his able speech of the previous night, commenced by stating, that the House was divided on this occasion into two parties: the one, those who were prepared to vote with his hon. Friend the Member for

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Sheffield, and go further than the Bill proposed to go; and, that on the other hand, it must be understood that all who voted against the Amendment maintained that the property of the Irish Church should be inviolable. He was not prepared to be included as pledging himself to that. He did not consider that, by supporting the Bill as it stood, he was precluded from considering and carrying out those principles in favour of which he had given his vote on former occasions. He, in voting against the Amendment, abandoned no principle he had previously maintained; but when he had to choose between the Amendment and the proposal of the Government, and believing that the proposal of the Government would be a great boon and a great blessing to Ireland, he did not consider he was abandoning any principle for which he had contended by supporting that measure which he was desirous to see carried into effect, in preference to his hon. Friend's Amendment. His hon. Friend must forgive him if he canvassed the course he had pursued in interposing this Amendment. He was not always bound—(suppose he assented to the whole principle and detail of his Amendment)—he was not therefore bound on all occasions, and under all circumstances, whenever the proposition was brought forward, to follow out that general assent by his vote, should that proposition be interposed at a time when, and in a manner which, in his opinion might injure and impede that practical course of legislation he would pursue. His hon. Friend had stated, with his usual frankness, that if he had to propose a measure on the subject, his real opinion was, that looking at the circumstances of the case, and the difficulties of the position of the Irish Church, the better course would be to withdraw all State support from either Church. That, his hon. Friend said, was his opinion two years ago; he did not know whether he still adhered to it—
Mr. Ward: What I said was, that perfect equality should be obtained some way or other, and that you should pay all the clergy or pay none.
Mr. F. T. Baring: But whatever might be his abstract opinion, the case now was this:—they had before them a measure which would clearly benefit the Irish people, and a proposal they might fairly carry out, and his course, as a practical man, was rather to take the good they were sure of being able to obtain, than interpose a proposition which, whatever its abstract
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merits, they knew could not be successful. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to an expected combination of parties against the Bill; but the right hon. Gentleman should remember that on a previous occasion, when it was expected that by an accidental combination of parties the Government might possibly be left in a minority with their Bill, the greatest consternation was felt by his hon. Friend (Mr. Ward), and Members generally on that side of the House, and means were taken to prevent such an occurrence. His object and that of his hon. Friends was to give the measure a fair, honest, and steady support; and they were too honest, if the Bill was likely to be defeated by an accidental combination such as had been suggested, to support an Amendment the success of which would have that effect. In point of fact many of those who voted for the Amendment to-night, would not do so if they had the least fear it would be carried. He did not consider that there was any abandonment of principle in this course. But he thought it was a conclusive proof of the inexpediency of proposing the Amendment at this time, and of encumbering the progress of the measure with such a proposition. The mode of bringing forward the Amendment, therefore, would induce those who agreed with him (Mr. Baring) as to the importance of the Bill to vote for that which was a practical measure, rather than for an abstract proposition, such as that involved in the Amendment of his hon. Friend. Then, what was the advantage of that Amendment? If it were carried, the Bill would be lost. It was quite evident it could not pass into a law if they tacked to it the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. His hon. Friend had himself said, that he did not propose his Amendment as a measure adapted to this particular Bill. If he understood him correctly, his hon. Friend stated, that he did not consider it so much as affecting this particular Bill, as the introduction of a great principle. Now, where was the advantage of that? Was there any necessity of deciding it at all? was it necessary to decide it and involve a sum so small and trifling as hardly to be worth discussing? The other view of his hon. Friend was more important, he admitted. His hon. Friend had stated, and others had also stated, that as this Bill was the first step in the course they were now pursuing, and which circumstance would render it necessary for them to proceed

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further, it was advisable to speak out at once, and give to the people a distinct notification of the principles upon which their future progress would be based. There was something catching in that argument, he admitted. There was something catching — something that fell in with the character of his hon. Friend as a public man in the proposition, that when they proposed to adopt a particular course of policy, to state at once, if they could, the principles on which they were about to proceed. But did his hon. Friend tell them what his proposal—what his principle was? Admitting the argument of the importance of declaring to the people the principles upon which they were to proceed, he (Mr. Baring) said they should state those principles intelligibly and distinctly; but as yet he could not understand what was the principle which his hon. Friend's proposal involved. He was aware that the Amendment was advocated by those who were hostile to all church endowment. Was he to understand that those hon. Gentlemen looked upon it as involving hereafter the proposal of endowing the Catholic Church? For, whether it were out of the Consolidated Fund or the revenues of the Church, the proposition was for an endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy. Was he to understand that those who were hostile to endowments altogether, were now abandoning that principle, and would hereafter be ready to support, under whatever circumstances, and at whatever time it might be proposed, the question of the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy? Was that to be understood as the nature of their Vote to-night; or did they not reserve to themselves rather the entire liberty hereafter of proposing a measure such as the alternative contemplated by the hon. Gentleman, but not by his Resolution, of withdrawing all grants from either the one religion or the other, and also from the Presbyterians? Was this the understanding? Others were asked to transfer entirely the funds of the Protestant Church in Ireland to the Catholic Church? His noble Friend was prepared to reduce and remodel the Protestant Church, and to support that Church and the Roman Catholic Church also. Which was the course his hon. Friend (Mr. Ward) adopted? If it was so expedient to declare to the people of England the principles upon which, in future, they were to proceed in this matter, let his hon. Friend have the goodness to state which of all those courses he would
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have them pursue. He was not surprised at the difference of opinion upon the subject on that (the Opposition) side of the House, any more than he was surprised at the difference of opinion on the other side. It was one of the great difficulties of legislation on the subject, that there were so many gradations of opinion, and so much variety in the decisions to which different minds arrived. Was it, then, advisable to lay down at this moment any decision as determining the course they were hereafter to pursue, from which no deviation could be permitted? Were there not difficulties already sufficiently embarrassing to any public man who might hereafter have to deal with this question; and was it not sufficient to know that they should have to deal with those difficulties, without binding their hands and the hands of Parliament as to the course in which they should legislate? He thought it far better that they should pass no such Resolution—that they should make no such decision than risk being placed in this position—that having made it, and announced it to the people of England as the fixed determination of the Government and the Legislature, they should afterwards be compelled to withdraw from it, and legislate upon a different principle? But he was told that by admitting the principle of his hon. Friend (Mr. Ward), they would be more likely in this, or any similar measure, to meet with the general assent of the country. He well knew the difficulty of obtaining that assent; but he could not persuade himself that such would be the result. What party would they conciliate by that course? Was it the Irish Protestants? Against the present Bill comparatively few petitions had emanated from that body; but did they suppose, if they introduced a clause which, not only as regarded the present Bill, but in its future legislation, would bind the House to this particular principle of appropriation, they would conciliate the Irish Protestants? Did they believe that they would conciliate the Irish Protestant body if they held out the prospect of stripping their Church of its endowments? Then, with regard to the Catholics themselves. He saw nothing to lead him to suppose that the Roman Catholics of Ireland would be dissatisfied if they did not deprive the Protestant Established Church of every means of revenue whatever. He did not believe that any such feeling existed amongst the Catholics of Ireland; if he did, he should have much less satisfaction in supporting

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the Government Bill. Then as to the question of endowment. So far as principle was concerned, it mattered little whether the funds for endowing the Catholic Church came from the Protestant Church revenues or the Consolidated Fund—it was equally endowed in either case. The difference was merely one of expense—how the payment should be best made; it became not a question of principle in this view, but one of finance—whether you would lay on additional tithes for the payment of the Catholic clergy. He wished they could get rid of the religious feeling, and deal with it altogether as a financial question. There was no proposition more clear, than that any money which they might lay out for the purpose of obtaining peace and satisfaction in Ireland, would repay them amply, and to a greater extent, than they could possibly expect. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle had expressed his opinions as to the feelings of the country, and had said that the question was not, with the people, whether there should be an Established Church or not, but the great objection was against endowing a religion which they believed to be founded in error. But if they endowed at all, they would be no more endowing error if they took the money from one source or the other. He agreed in this opinion expressed by the Member for Newcastle. He believed, after all, the objection was—and they saw it in the petitions generally—that, whatever might be the opinion as to the question of Establishments, the real objection arose out of a feeling of hostility to the Catholic religion. Hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House were not sensible enough of the power and influence possessed by the Church of England; and he believed that they would throw incalculable difficulties in their way if they roused that power, and the feelings which it would prompt, against the progress of improvement in Ireland. He, for one, would be no party to binding the House to any course to be afterwards pursued. This was not with him an objection of conscience to the Resolution of his hon. Friend. He did not entertain upon the subject of the grant, those conscientious objections felt and expressed by others. He believed that it was for the advantage of the Protestant Church in Ireland that its temporalities should be reconsidered, and that the scandals of which they heard should be swept away from that Establishment. He said this quite independently of the question of the appropriation
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of the revenue of the Protestant Church for Catholic purposes. Even although the Catholic Church were endowed from other sources—if he wanted not a farthing for its Establishment—still, as a Protestant, and as, he trusted, not an indifferent one, he should be anxious to reduce the amount of the revenue of the Irish Protestant Church to that sum which should be considered sufficient for its maintenance, and for the due instruction of the flocks committed to its charge. On the other hand, he believed that the endowment of the Catholic clergy would be a great blessing. When he spoke of the endowment of the Catholic clergy, he spoke of such an endowment as could be received by them without degradation—without injury to their usefulness among their flock, and not with the view of making them the servile dependants of the State. The endowment of the Irish priesthood, he maintained, would be a blessing to Ireland in itself; it would be an act of justice to Ireland, of policy towards this country, and an advantage to that common Christianity which, Catholic or Protestant, they all held. While he said so, however, he believed that there was a large body of the people in this country who would willingly consent to the payment of the Catholic clergy from the public purse; but if that proposition were to be united to one for the deprivation of the Protestant Church of its revenues, they would find that the number of its supporters would be very much diminished. There were many Protestants who by no means thought the abuses of the Irish Church apart of its religion; and who, while they would be very willing to support a revision of the Establishment, would by no means so readily entertain the proposition of handing its revenues over to the Church of Rome. He was desirous for both these measures; but he found that their conjunction made them more difficult to be carried. He did not fee any necessity for such a conjunction; and he therefore objected, not to the measures themselves, but to such a union as he considered would impede them. In stating this he was, of course, merely giving utterance to his own private opinion that such was the case. Under all the circumstances of the case, he felt great reluctance in adopting any Resolution which would bind the House as to its future course. It was in vain to conceal from themselves how deeply the English people felt upon this subject. He was not one

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who would be inclined to abandon an opinion because it was not the opinion of a majority; but this House must look to a certain extent, and those who governed the country must look to a certain extent, to the feelings of the people; and if they found that they could obtain their end in a manner which, upon abstract principles, they might not prefer as the best upon paper, but, at the same time, which would give to Ireland what they wished to give it—which would give it in a way which would produce less dissatisfaction in England—he, for one, would be prepared to support such a measure, let it come from whom it might; and he would not, by voting for the proposition of his hon. Friend, throw any difficulty in the way of carrying it.
Mr. Bernalsaid, we lived in singular political times, and as a proof of the fact, he might cite his own case, at finding himself called on to oppose the view of the question taken by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baring). His right hon. Friend was a powerful opponent of any measure, because it was quite evident that his sentiments proceeded from his heart. But he confessed, in this instance, the reasoning of his right hon. Friend had not satisfied him, nor would it deter him from openly expressing his opinion that, in his judgment, the right course for him to take was to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. When his right hon. Friend said he wished to warn the House not to embark in a course of difficulties which would have the effect of fettering subsequent legislation, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman how he proposed to remove the difficulty? Did the right hon. Gentleman think the Bill of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) was sailing as it were, on a Mediterranean Sea, with no wintry gales to disturb its unruffled progress? So far from this being the case, he considered that the Bill was embarked on a tempestuous ocean; and he would tell the right hon. Gentleman that there were difficulties in it which would embarrass its progress more certainly than any Motion which the hon. Member for Sheffield would bring forward. His right hon. Friend had asked whether the proposition would conciliate the opponents of the Government measure; and had advised Government to attend to the opinions of the people. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that it was right to attend to the opinion of the people when
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that opinion was conscientiously expressed, provided no violence was done to the conscience; but he for one, from cowardice, would never abandon one sentiment or principle which he believed ought to be entertained. The hon. Member for Sheffield had said that in his present Motion he did not depart from any one opinion he had previously expressed on the Irish Church Establishment; but, abiding by the principle, he was willing to make some concessions to his opponents. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Baring) had said there were many persons who would support a Motion for the reform of the Irish Church, but who would not vote for anything that tended to the destruction of the Church. He avowed himself of that party or section, or shadow of a party, or ghost of a section, if such a thing could be, who thought that the Irish Church Establishment ought to be fined down; and he would not be deterred from voting for a measure that embraced such an object, from false or real assertions that it was in contemplation to destroy the Irish Established Church. It had been asserted that the compact at the Union forbade any legislation for the reform of the Church. He would ask the House to recollect what had been done by former Acts. Had they not narrowed the episcopal circle? Had they not, by the instrumentality of the Ecclesiastical Commission, taken a portion of the revenues of the Irish Church, and diverted them to other purposes? He counselled the House to abandon all delusion to the effect that it was fettered and chained by the terms of that compact. Any man of sense, who addressed his unbiassed reflection to the important subject of the expediency of making some change in the present position of the Irish hierachical Establishment, must acknowledge there was nothing in past history to warrant him in saying that the House was fettered on this question by previous contract. The hon. Member for Newcastle stated, that the general body of Dissenters on the old ground—the odium theologicum—objected to the policy of the Ministers, and that this feeling—the fear of disseminating what they termed the odious doctrines of Popery—had led them to cover the Table of the House with petitions against the grant. His hon. Friend ought to recollect the different arguments used by the various classes of Dissenters, and the different opinions entertained by the Wesleyan and other Dissenters; and this reflection would possibly

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induce him to think that it would not be very advisable for the House to be swayed by a clamour raised on such different grounds. Such expressions as had been used at meetings—namely, treason to Her Majesty, treason to the Throne, and similar strong language, he entirely deprecated. He would not hold alliance—he would not be considered to be in amity, with men who held such opinions, and who indulged in such language. Adieu to careful consideration of important questions; adieu to that coolness and temperate tone in which discussions within doors ought to be regulated, if such violent and intemperate expressions out of doors were to be regarded. In saying thus much, he was bound to declare that when a conscientious feeling did pervade the breasts of any large part of his fellow countrymen, that such a feeling ought not to be slurred over; and if asked whether he thought the measure of the hon. Member for Sheffield would solve the difficulty which surrounded the question, he replied that though the measure might not entirely smooth the difficulty, it would do something towards that object. He considered this question was totally distinct from the question of an annual grant to Maynooth. The moment the proposition was put in the shape of a Bill, that moment the original spirit of the grant was departed from—and the measure must be considered as containing something more than an idea respecting the future endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood. By this grant he did not conceive he was going to increase the number of dangerous emissaries of Rome, or "Jesuitical incendiaries;"—bugbears put boldly forth by the opponents of the Ministerial policy, not for the terror of children, but of children of a larger growth. He had seen in one of the morning papers, that if the Roman Catholic priests were better educated, by means of the increased grant, the result would probably be the Protestantising of Ireland. This was the view taken by some of the supporters of the grant; but he would pass it over without remark. He would, however, ask the right hon. Baronet a question to which he hoped to have a serious reply. It was—why, if this measure (the increased grant to Maynooth) in his view was so consistent with justice, to the safety of the Empire, and to the stability of the institutions of Europe, why was it postponed until the year 1845; and what in the year 1845
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had occurred so imminent in its character as to induce the right hon. Baronet to bring it forward? The right hon. Baronet in his speech alluded to the position of this country with reference to certain countries across the Atlantic, and with reference to our situation with respect to Ireland. He said, conscientiously and firmly, that this part of the right hon. Baronet's speech was indiscreet. Nothing could be more dangerous in the present position of affairs, whether abroad or in Ireland, than to make such an allusion as the right hon. Baronet had done, to be quoted by itinerant orators in Ireland; to give them an opportunity of saying that the right hon. Baronet had made this concession, not merely to do good to that country, but from his seeing the shadow of coming hostilities, and therefore it was necessary for him to palliate the feelings of our Irish countrymen; otherwise he would not have been prepared to grant such a measure. ["No, no."] This was the impression on every Member's mind, that without some such feeling this measure would not have emanated from the Government. ["Hear, hear," from the Treasury bench.] Then he would ask those Gentlemen who cried "Hear, hear," and "No, no," for what reason this measure had been postponed till now? Why had it not been brought forward in 1839 or 1840? The Judge Advocate laughed; he should be happy to hear his defence of Her Majesty's Ministers. Did they consider that they had waited till the strong arm of the law had reached the monster meetings in Ireland? He would repeat a question that had been often put,—he would ask, did the monster meetings form the only objection to this increased grant to Maynooth? He thought the House could scarcely forget that, year after year, the measure now proposed by the Ministers of the Crown had been urged upon the consideration of the House of Commons by those friends near him who now sat on the Opposition benches; and he would put another question—when the present Ministers were out of office, did they receive the propositions of his friends on the subject of Maynooth in the same spirit that the Opposition of the present day had received theirs? He believed that no one would attempt to answer that question in the affirmative. He wished to carry his interrogations a little further;—the question which he had to put was an "old tale," but he must repeat

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it, if there be 7,000,000 of Roman Catholics, 800,000 Members of the Established Church, and 1,000,000 of Protestant Dissenters of all sorts, was the existing system of the Church Establishment in Ireland to be maintained for a minority so exceedingly small? The Established Church in Ireland had two archbishops, ten bishops, and a multitude of parochial clergy. For that rev. and right rev. body he entertained the highest respect. He doubted not that many of them deserved to be described as the lights and the ornaments of the Protestant Church, and that there were amongst them men who fully sustained the apostolic character. He would not have any one man suffer who held a benefice in the Irish branch of the Esstablished Church; but, then he begged the House to remember that a considerable sum of money had already been accumulated; that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had already invested as much as 47,000 l. in the Three per Cent. Consols. It was also well known that there was an enormous number of parishes in Ireland which did not contain more than ten Protestants. Could, then, such an Establishment as that which they had in Ireland co-exist with such a state of things? It would be impossible to maintain a tranquil state of society amidst such a diversity of sentiment and such inequality of numbers. If they attempted to maintain it they could only succeed by physical force, and by the sword. He was one of those who thought that two Establishments might co-exist in Ireland. In Rhenish Germany there were Protestants and Roman Catholics living together as fellow-subjects and fellow-citizens in perfect harmony, and the same temples were used for the religious ceremonies of both persuasions. This was the case at Heidelberg, at Baden-Baden, and in various places throughout Switzerland. He must not, however, leave this subject without adverting to a charge which had been preferred against his right hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvon. It was said that he and the great body of the Roman Catholics were desirous of seeing the Protestant Establishment in Ireland destroyed. His right hon. Friend had often expressed a contrary opinion in private; and he believed there were many hon. Members now in the House belonging to the Roman Catholic Church who never had felt the least wish to effect the destruction of the Established Church in Ireland, and he
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called upon them now publicly to avow the sentiments which they had often privately expressed. In supporting the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, he was abiding by principle, and in these days principle was worth more than a Bill; for unfortunately at present public men did not stand so very high with regard to consistency as to render principle a matter of anything less than the highest importance.
Captain Gladstonewished briefly to state his reasons for the vote he had already given, and was about to give. He wished to speak with all respect of the gentlemen who signed the petitions from the place he represented; but having made up his mind to support the grant, he would be less entitled to their confidence if he did not vote according to his convictions. As an hon. Member had given notice of a Motion to make the grant annual, he should, for the present, reserve what he had to say on that point. From a personal visit to Maynooth College he could confirm what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) respecting the dilapidated state of the building, and the insufficiency of the fund for the maintenance of the students. The present state of Maynooth was not creditable to the State with which it was connected, nor were the feelings with which the students left the College favourable to the general peace of the country. By improving the education of those who were to be the future priests, they would bind the institution in a better spirit, and no doubt would materially contribute to soften the animosities existing between the Roman Catholic peasantry and their Protestant fellow-subjects. He did not agree with those who thought the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy lurked behind the present measure. If that were his belief he would not support the grant. It did not necessarily follow that because we gave a better education to the Roman Catholic priesthood, we were therefore bound to provide for them in after life. During his visit to the College of Maynooth, he asked the rev. President, to whose kindness he bore willing testimony—"Suppose a larger and more liberal endowment were made, would it induce the higher classes of Roman Catholics to send their sons to enter the priesthood?" His answer was—"a higher class does not exist." He meant that they did not exist in sufficient numbers to fill up

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the vacanies in the Roman Catholic priesthood. Mr. O'Connell, in arguing that money was not necessary to the support of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, said—
"Has the Catholic church fallen for want of money? No: she was never in a more triumphant state. She has four archbishops, twenty-three bishops, two thousand parish priests, each of whom has two or three curates. We have an unbroken hierarchy as perfect and as organized as before the days of Henry VIII. It is not money, then, that supports her."
He did not think, therefore, that by supporting this grant he was doing an act that would lead to the endowment of the Roman Catholic priests. He believed their position was as comfortable, if the station in life from whence they were taken was considered, as that of the clergymen of this country, or of the ministers of the Church of Scotland. He should give the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield his most strenuous opposition. He believed if hon. Members on that (the Ministerial) side of the House voted for the Amendment then, they might be justly taunted with having deserted their principles. He should defend the Church of Ireland on religious grounds. He believed the prescription of 300 years was sufficient to make the Protestants of Ireland consider that Church as their birthright, and that it was their duty to transmit it to their posterity. Much had been said of the remissness of the Protestant clergy in past times; but now, when it was admitted on all hands that they were performing their duties, it would be very unjust to deprive them of any portion of their revenues. He should willingly support any measure calculated to confer a real benefit on the Roman Catholics of Ireland; but if any attempt were made to diminish the revenues of the Established Church, then his principle was still "no surrender." The extent of church accommodation provided in some parts of Ireland had been contrasted with the paucity of the Protestant parishioners, but it was well known that in general the number of churches was insufficient. A vast number of churches had been lately erected by private subscription, and the wants of the Protestant community required many more. He should give the Amendment his decided opposition.
Viscount Howick: I agree to a great extent in what fell, in the beginning of his
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speech, from my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth. I certainly cannot concur in his concluding observations: but I agree that the great question brought before us is not submitted either in a convenient form or on a convenient occasion. I think the occasion inconvenient, because it undoubtedly interferes with the progress of a Bill to which I, for one, am anxious to give my best support. I think the form inconvenient, because the question really raised, as I understand it, is the great and important question whether the whole arrangement of the Irish Church should be remodelled or not. And that is submitted incidentally as to the funds from which the comparatively small sum of 26,000 l. is to be drawn. Sir, this seems to me far too small a proposal to bring forward as the test of so great a principle. But, at the same time, as it seems to be the wish of Gentlemen at both sides that this question should be considered as really intended to decide the point, whether the present appropriation of Church property should be continued, or whether the existing arrangement should be reconsidered — when a division is to be taken as the test of our views on this question, I am willing to consider it in the manner in which it has been submitted. And, though I feel very unequal to the task of addressing the House on such a subject, yet having, ever since my entrance into public life, taken a deep interest in this subject—having entertained strong opinions upon it, and every additional year's experience only serving to strengthen them—I cannot allow this debate to close without expressing my views, however inadequately I may be able to do so. I have always regarded the Church of Ireland in the same light as my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh. In his most unanswerable speech of last night I entirely concur. I have always regarded the maintenance of the Irish Church on its present footing as contrary to every principle of justice and policy. I believe, in my conscience, the maintenance of that Church has been the great obstacle to the spread of the Protestant religion. I am so persuaded of the truth of the great principles of that religion, that I firmly believe, if they were given fair play, if they were not weighed down by the injustice of the system to which they are united, they must in three centuries have taken root and flourished in the soil of Ireland as they have done in other countries. I believe also the Church

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of Ireland is the main source of all that misgovernment and oppression under which the Irish for nearly three centuries have suffered. Sir, this is the view I take of this subject. It is one I never concealed. When I was a party to bringing forward the Appropriation Clause, I never attempted to disguise the fact that the arguments on which I supported the proposition were arguments which, if pushed to the utmost, would have carried me further than the clause then proposed. I never disguised that such was the fact; and if I was content with a proposal falling far short of the principle for which I contended, it was because I believed that at that time the Roman Catholics of Ireland were inclined to accept far less than justice entitled them to demand. In 1838, when I consented to the passing of a Tithe Bill without the Appropriation Clause, I also did not conceal that I acquiesced in the determination of Government, not because I had altered my opinion as to the justice of the Appropriation Clause, but because I felt that the time at which such a compromise could have been accepted had gone by. The right hon. Baronet opposite may remember that that, and that only, was the ground on which I consented to the bringing forward of a Tithe Bill without the Appropriation Clause. I have always held that the Appropriation Clause—not so much from what it did as from the spirit it displayed—as being a tender, of part at least, of the just claims of the Catholics, and which, when originally proposed, the Catholics were willing to accept—to be a concession, not so much to their interest as to their feelings and sense of honour, which are wounded by the existing arrangement. But I said in 1838 that it was perfectly obvious that from the protracted contests, from the debates of many years, the original state of things was altered, and that the language of those opposed to the clause had so far succeeded as to render it not worth the struggle by which it could be obtained; that I saw that a compromise of this kind would be no longer accepted; that, not being acceptable, it was clear that the larger and more difficult question with respect to the Church must at no distant period be raised; that I did not then raise it because those interested did not think it could then be advantageously brought forward, but which I saw must come before us ultimately, and I never concealed in what way justice, in my opinion, required it should be settled. I
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have referred to these things merely to show that when the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department spoke of Gentlemen on this side as being now prepared to go farther than they did formerly, he did not do us, or at least all of us, justice. He will bear me witness that my opinions were formerly strongly avowed, and supported to the utmost of my ability. I shall not attempt now, after having so often addressed the House on the subject, and more especially after the admirable speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, to point out the defects of the existing arrangement. I wish rather at once to go to the practical question of how this anomaly and injustice, as I consider it, is to be dealt with. Sir, I have no hesitation in stating my opinion on that point. I have already said that more than two years ago I stated it as my persuasion that the time had gone by when a compromise on this question could be listened to. You might, I firmly believe, had you been content to accept the Appropriation Clause of 1835, have maintained the Church, for our time at least, without seriously trenching upon its revenues. But you triumphed in resisting that compromise. The result is that you have now brought about a state of things in which, in my opinion, compromise is no longer practicable. You must now do full justice to the Catholics of Ireland. It is no use any longer endeavouring to palter with the question. I, for one, will never again be a party to an incomplete and inadequate measure of reform. I will never disturb the country by proposing any measure that does not, in my opinion, go to the root of the evil—when I say go to the root of the evil, what I mean is, one that does not deal on entirely equal terms with Catholics and Protestants. There must be no distinction—there must be no insolent assumption of any greater correctness of doctrine, or of a claim to be regarded by the State and by the Government as the Protestant party in the State. The Catholic and Protestant interest, must, in my opinion, be considered and be dealt with alike. I am persuaded this is not the time to disguise our opinions as to the Church. I wish to have no concealment whatever on the subject; and I will tell you, therefore, what, according to my present information, appears to me the mode in which the subject should be dealt with. I say, in the first place, I would save all existing interests. I would not, on any

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account, mulct of their incomes those who now receive them from the Irish Church. Therefore, to meet the immediate difficulty, I think we are bound to draw on the Consolidated Fund of this country. Under other circumstances this might be unjust, and I am most strongly of opinion that Ireland herself should ultimately provide for the religious instruction of the Irish people, just as England provides for the religious instruction of the English people. As a permanent arrangement, I hold that to be what justice requires; for we have no right to call on the English people to contribute from the taxes to the instruction of Ireland. But as a temporary arrangement the case is different. I think it is the fault of the English people themselves that we are not now in a situation to provide for the religious wants of the Irish people from the property of the Irish Church. But for the prejudices of this country a considerable sum would now be disposable for the purpose. But for the prejudices of England and Scotland the Appropriation Clause would have been carried in 1835; and not only that, but if those prejudices had not interfered, and we had then been able to deal with the application of the property of the Irish Church, as reason and common sense dictated, you would not have been compelled to fritter and waste it away as you have done. You wasted it by the arrangement of 1838, as to bishops' lands. If the property of the Irish Church had not been devoted to unpopular purposes—if you had not applied it to objects to which the general sense of Ireland was opposed, you need not have wasted it in the scandalous way you have done. If the property of the Church had been devoted to the religious instruction of the great body of the people, I believe neither the Parliament nor the Irish people would have consented as to the arrangement with respect to the bishops' lands. Precisely in the same manner, from the unpopular and unjust application of the revenues, a sacrifice of 25 per cent. was made of the tithes in 1838. Therefore, I maintain, as those mistakes have arisen from what I conceive to be the prejudices, the no doubt honest prejudices, of the English and Scotch people, the consequences should fairly fall on those who committed them, and England and Scotland ought to pay for the present religious wants of Ireland. But I say that instruction should ultimately be supplied by Ireland itself. If I had to
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deal with the property of the Church, I should invest it in Commissioners, I should provide that they should pay the existing incumbents. And as those interests fell in, the first charge I should make on it would be a provision for the Roman Catholic clergy. I say the first charge, because I know it is the custom on this and on the other side to talk of giving any surplus that may be found to the Roman Catholics. I repudiate that notion as altogether unjust. I say the Catholics have the first claim on the funds. They are the majority; they are of the poorest class; the property originally belonged to them until it was transferred to the maintenance of the Established Church. In every point of view, then, in which this property can be regarded, they have the first claim on it. Not only in this view, but in another, I think it is for the national interest that the clergy of the Irish people should be provided for. Precisely as it is the interest of England that the clergy of England should have an independent provision without forcing contributions from their flocks, I think it of essential importance that the clergy of the great body to the Irish people should have incomes independent of the caprice of those whom they teach. I for one have no hesitation in saying that I am most distinctly opposed to what is called the voluntary principle. I am utterly unable to understand the views of those who adopt that policy. In education, Gentlemen on both sides concur in saying that the State ought to interfere, and that we should not trust merely to voluntary efforts. Large grants have been made in England, Ireland, and Scotland, of late years for the purpose of education; and the general complaint on both sides has been, that owing to the unfortunate sectarian feelings, and the want of charity that prevailed either in the Church or amongst the Dissenters, we have not been able to carry as far as was desirable the assistance given by the State to education. But if in the great measure of education we cannot trust to voluntary efforts, I think that this is more strongly the case as to religious instruction. Who are those who most want religious instruction? Precisely those who are not sensible of the want. ["Hear, hear."] I am glad you cheer that sentiment; but if you admit the necessity of religious instruction, will you say by whom it shall be provided for the people? Let me ask you in what shape should it be

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given—in a shape in which it will be useless, or in which it will be acceptable? I suppose it is for some practical object that you mean to provide religious instruction. And in Ireland, where the great mass of the people will only receive it on the terms of its being conveyed through the Roman Catholic religion—if you consider it necessary that religious instruction should be afforded, how can you justify refusing to offer it on the only terms they will be content to take it? For my part I am so persuaded of the necessity of some such provision, that I am ready to find the means from any source I can. I am ready to take the money, in the first instance, from the Consolidated Fund, or any other fund you can fix upon; but I do feel that, with regard to the Roman Catholic population of Ireland, it is absolutely necessary to make some provision for their religious instruction. To impose the tax you now do on the population of Ireland; to compel a peasantry, the most destitute and the worst off in the world, to find the means of paying for religious instruction, when there is in the country a magnificent national endowment, which is theirs by right, is, in my opinion, the most flagrant violation of justice that any nation was ever guilty of. But if we provide in the first instance for the Catholics, I am perfectly willing to provide also for the Protestants; and if the existing Church property is not sufficient to provide for them on a scale adequate to their wants, I am prepared to secure funds for that purpose out of the property of Ireland. I am prepared to take back from the landlords the sum they obtained from Church property in 1838; and I believe, if so increased, we should have a national endowment sufficient to meet the real wants of both Catholics and Protestants. When the right hon. Baronet tells me that though he has no conscientious scruple against a State provision for the Catholic clergy, yet he will not propose it because the Roman Catholics tell him that they would not accept it; I cannot help asking him whether he is really serious in submitting that as an argument to the House? Does he believe that if the Catholic clergy were provided for without any attempt to interfere with their Church in matters of discipline—if an endowment was offered in the same liberal and generous manner that the Maynooth grant is made—does any Gentleman for a moment believe that
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an offer of that kind, fairly and frankly made, would not be readily accepted by the people and clergy of Ireland? If Irish Members or clergy say no, I cannot credit them. I do not impute to them wilful misrepresentation; but I say they know neither themselves nor their flocks, nor human nature, if they persist in saying that an offer so made would be rejected. We were now told that a legislative recognition should be given to the religion of the great majority of the Irish people. It is vain to disguise the fact, that the great majority of that people are Catholics; and that being the case, it is our interest to educate their clergy, and raise the standard of their qualifications. If that be the case, are we not also called upon by the same principle to make a State provision for the maintenance of the clergy, whose education we are now providing for? The right hon. Gentleman told us that a happier day was dawning for Ireland, and that new principles of government should be adopted towards that country. It is a libel on human nature to suppose that conciliation will not produce the happiest effects; and that the message of peace sent over to that country will be without its advantages. What are we to understand by that language? Simply this, that the right hon. Baronet feels we had been carrying on the government of Ireland hitherto on a wrong foundation, and tha a Government resting only on the support of force is based on a hollow and false foundation. If you admit that, you must govern Ireland so as to obtain the good-will and affections of the Irish people, you ought to legislate as a Parliament sitting in Dublin, and freely representing; the Irish people. If the Irish people were legislating for themselves, would they continue to maintain the existing arrangements with respect to the Established Church? Should we do so in the same case ourselves? The security and safely of the Established Church has been made the ground of every act of injustice and harshness towards Ireland. Can we wonder that 150 years of such conduct has produced its natural results? If the people of this country were subjected to similar treatment with the Irish, what would be their feelings? Now that the right hon. Baronet has brought forward measures inconsistent with his former policy towards Ireland, and has commenced a new system of concession, he ought to follow out his policy fully and fairly. It was with

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regret that I heard from the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, last night, a renewal of former declarations of his resolution to maintain the Established Church. In the course of these debates, Her Majesty's Government have felt themselves in a position of great difficulty; they have been told that the measures they are now adopting were altogether at variance with those they recommended in Opposition. They have met those attacks in the most creditable manner. The right hon. Baronet said that he should despise himself if any feeling of desire to preserve his consistency should deter him from bringing forward the measures required by the public service. It is honourable to a Minister to hold such language; but is it not at the same time most painful to the right hon. Baronet, and most injurious to the country, that he should be placed in a situation where it becomes necessary for him to employ it? The right hon. Baronet should be aware of sowing, by a hesitating and uncertain policy, seeds which will produce, in a few years, a similar crop of disaffection and enforced concession, when he will be driven to adopt the alternative of abandoning the pledges he now gives, or of shrinking from bringing forward such measures as the country may demand. The right hon. Gentleman may be assured that he will find himself unable to maintain the declaration he has made relative to the Established Church. We have only to look to what has gone before to see what will follow after. If the right hon. Baronet be determined to maintain the Irish Church, he may be sure that Irish agitation never will be put down. This measure will be accepted indeed, but it will be accepted only as an instalment and earnest of future success; the demands of the agitators will again be urged, in a louder tone, and with greater certainty of success. The battle will be fought again on a different ground; the same watchwords as of old will be heard from the same ranks. Again the religious prejudices of England and Scotland will be arrayed against the settled determination of the great majority of the Irish people. The assailants of the Church, flushed with victory, animated by the acquisition of vast success, and encouraged by the proof they have received that everything is to be obtained by agitation, will make greater efforts, which
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will be infinitely more difficult to resist than before. As the right hon. Baronet has been driven to yield the outworks and bulwarks of the Church, so will he be driven to yield the Church itself. As he yielded Catholic Emancipation, the Irish Reform Bill, and Irish Municipal Reform, and as he is now driven to make this attempt to grant peace to Ireland by the endowment of Maynooth, in the same manner he will be driven to take another step in advance. Does the right hon. Gentleman reflect how infinitely he diminishes the advantages of concession by making it thus gradual, and fighting his way, inch by inch, for every step he is compelled to yield? If the right hon. Gentleman were to come forward and tell the people of England that he must govern Ireland on the principle of perfect equality, founding his measures on the principle of making them such as the Irish people would themselves make them, my conviction is, he would meet with infinitely less difficulty and opposition than that with which this partial measure has been received. A great portion of that opposition springs, I believe, from a feeling that this measure is not the conclusion of the course which the right hon. Baronet purposes to follow; his policy is felt to be vague and indefinite, and leading to uncertain results which the people of England are unwilling to admit. Retaining strongly the convictions to which I have repeatedly given expression in this House, I shall give my vote in favour of the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield.
Mr. G. A. Hamiltonwas very sensible of the disadvantage under which he laboured in addressing the House after the noble Lord who had just sat down, and at so late a period in the debate; but he was glad he had been unable to catch the Speaker's eye, as he had sought to do, at an early period of the preceding evening, for he had the opportunity of now remarking upon some most erroneous statements—some gross mis-statements—that had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Bath, in reference to the Irish branch of the Church of England; and also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh. These hon. Members had spoken of the Church of Ireland as consisting of pastors without a flock, as consisting of Protestant sinecure parsons; and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bath had stated,

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that in a large proportion of the parishes of Ireland, in nine out of ten, the Protestant clergyman was alone in the midst of a Roman Catholic population; and the hon. Member had, he must say, rather offensively challenged any one to deny his statement. Now, he would most emphatically deny it. There is no one who knows Ireland that must not know that the assertion of the hon. Member is utterly without foundation. What were the real facts of the case? The House was aware that in the year 1834 a Commission was appointed consisting of persons certainly not disposed to exaggerate the number of Protestants, and this Commission had made a Report of the population of different denominations in each benefice in Ireland. And what was the result? Why, in the first place, there were just forty-one benefices in Ireland with no member of the Established Church. He had examined that Report carefully in reference to the statement of the hon. and learned Member; time had not admitted of his taking more than a limited number of benefices, but he had examined the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction with reference to every benefice in Ireland which contained not more than ten members of the Established Church; and he had examined the Report of the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Revenue with regard to the emoluments of such benefices, and he had arrived at the following results:—There were then in Ireland 82 benefices with not mow than ten members of the Established Church. ["Hear."] He was quite aware of the distinction which he supposed the hon. Members who were cheering him ironically meant to draw between parishes and benefices; but when the hon. Member for Bath had spoken of pastors without flocks, and overpaid sinecure parsons, he must maintain that it was by benefices and not parishes that the accuracy of the hon. and learned Member's statement was to be tested. He begged to observe he did not include Dissenters of any description in his calculation, whereas it was well known that Dissenters in Ireland for the most part attend church. Of these 82 benefices, in the case of 39, the clergymen had other duties to perform; and he thought the House would not be surprised or think it unreasonable that they should perform other duties (generally they were curates of adjoining
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benefices), when he stated that the gross income of those 30 benefices was 4,134 l. a year, or little more than 100 l. a year each on an average. Of the remainder of the 82, six benefices were suspended and in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; he believed some others had been suspended since. In the case of 24 there was no provision whatever for the payment of a clergyman; and in the case of the remaining 13, the incumbents of which, from there being no glebe or place of residence, were non-residents, the gross income was only 1,169 l., or about 80 l. a year each. He had not had time to follow that inquiry further—he had selected what would appear the worst cases; he had the list of them in his hand, which any hon. Member was at liberty to examine; he had no doubt that if the same process of inquiry was applied to others up to any amount of population the result would be similar. Now, he would beg to ask the House, was it just, was it fair, for hon. Members to talk of nine out of ten of the parsons in Ireland being shepherds without flocks? The question of the income of the Established Church had been so frequently brought before the House, that he would not trouble them with the details, but he felt it right to re-assert what had been stated last year, that at the present moment, without any deduction for ecclesiastical tax or for poor rate, out of 1,395 benefices in Ireland, there were just 31, the gross income of which was above 1,000 l. a year, 26 being in the Protestant province of Armagh; and, as he had shown in several instances last year, the net income of these, after deducting necessary expenses, could not be estimated at more than 700 l. a year on an average, and that when the Church Temporalities Act shall be in full operation there will be no sinecures or pluralities. Already they have been nearly all prevented; there will be just nine benefices exceeding 1,000 l., seven of them being in the Protestant province of Armagh. Considerably more than one-half will be under 300 l. a year, and in the proportion of 12 out of 14 will be under 600 l. And further, supposing a new distribution of Church property in Ireland made according to the Church population, which, however, he should think most objectionable, each clergyman would have a congregation of 620 members of the Established Church, besides Dissenters, and an income

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of about 220 l. It was, therefore, he thought, quite manifest that the Church Establishment was at the lowest point at which it was possible for an establishment to be maintained as such, and that therefore the real question was, whether the Church was to be maintained or utterly; destroyed in Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, while he admitted the present efficiency and improved state of the Irish Church, had denied that it had effected the object for which, as he maintained, it was instituted, and, therefore, he had called for its subversion. Now, he could not admit that the apparent success or want of success which might attend a religion or a religious establishment, was the criterion by which that Establishment was to be judged. If the Church in Ireland had not succeeded in former times, he might attribute it to the manner in which its patronage had been abused by the British Government. But he could not admit the force of the argument at all. Religious establishments are but instruments for the promotion of religious truth. It is no doubt the duty of States and of men to make them as efficient as possible; but it is not by mere human means that religious truth will be ultimately triumphant. Would the right hon. Gentleman venture to apply his principle to religion generally? Considering the immense proportion of mankind who are still ignorant of Christianity, can it be said that the Christian Church, or Christian churches, of any denomination, have fully accomplished the purposes for which they were instituted; and, if they have not, would the right hon. Gentleman say that churches are all to be abolished, and Christian truth left to take its chance in the world? He would correct every abuse in a Church; but he was persuaded that it was the duty of a State, having an Established Church, to bring the truth inculcated by that Church within the reach of every one who might choose to listen to them; and however we may differ now as to what truth in religion was, no Christian can doubt that Christian truth will ultimately prevail. Or would the right hon. Gentleman apply this principle to educational establishments? If it was the case in this country that educational institutions had in a great degree failed in their object, would the right hon. Gentleman maintain that, therefore, the educational establishments
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of the country were to be subverted? The House and the country had heard a great deal recently on the subject of restitution. As that argument had been used, he thought it necessary to say a few words on that part of the subject. He did not wish to trouble the House with elaborate historical proofs, but he felt bound to say, that the doctrine and argument of restitution was quite inconsistent with the real facts of the case, as supported by the most conclusive historical proofs in reference to the Church of Ireland. The first of those facts which he would advance, and was quite ready to maintain by historical proofs, was this, that the early Church had no connexion with the Church of Rome; that it was far from agreeing with the Church of Rome in doctrine; that the Pope exercised no ecclesiastical authority in Ireland over the Irish Church, previous to the end of the twelfth century; that all attempts to assert such authority were strenuously resisted by the Irish Church. He certainly could not deny that for three centuries after the reign of Henry II. the connexion with Rome was established; but then he must maintain that that connexion was thrown off at the time of the Reformation, or, at least, in the reign of Elizabeth, by all except two of the hierarchy of Ireland, and by a large proportion of the clergy; that at the time of the Reformation there was no transfer of property in Ireland from one existing Church to another existing Church—there was no new Church set up, and no old Church turned out; the Church reformed itself, and for ten years, at least, the population of Ireland frequented the Reformed Churches; and it was only when the Pope found it impossible to induce the existing Church to return to the allegiance which he considered to be due to himself that he came to the resolution of setting up a Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, with the hope of ultimately supplanting the Reformed Church. He most conscientiously believed these to be the real, plain facts of the case—he believed they admitted of the clearest historical proof; and, if they did, what became of the whole argument of restitution? There was another branch of the subject connected with the Resolution before the House, upon which it was his duty to make some remarks, and that was, the insult to the feelings and opinions of the Protestants of Ireland, which the adoption of the Resolution now before the House, to say nothing of its injustice,

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was calculated to inflict. In reference to a question of this peculiar and delicate nature, the House ought not to be insensible to the feelings which prevailed in Ireland among the Protestant population on such subjects. The endowment of Maynooth by the State out of State funds might, and he hoped would, be discussed without exciting any angry feelings; but for the House deliberately to affirm, or seriously to entertain a proposition that the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth should be endowed out of the funds of the Established Church, would be regarded, he could only say, as a wanton insult to the feelings of Her Majesty's Protestant subjects in Ireland. It was the fashion to talk of insults to Ireland, though not on his side of the House; and the allegation of insult seemed the argument which had most force. But who were the Protestants whose feelings were to be thus wantonly insulted?—were they entitled to no consideration at the hands of the Government or the Legislature? Through evil report and good report they had proved themselves the unflinching supporters of the law and the Constitution; unappalled by the threats, unseduced by the blandishments of the enemies of the British connexion; undergoing trials and persecutions, which those unacquainted with the real state of things in Ireland could not well appreciate, they formed the British garrison in the midst of a hostile country. When your Constitution is in danger, when the peace of Ireland is exposed to risk, when the British connexion it threatened, when a political object is to be gained, when sacrifices are to be made, you are sure to appeal to the Protestants of Ireland; and never yet, whether that appeal was made to their spirit or to their moderation, has it been made in vain by a British Government or a British Legislature. Year after year have they seen principles and institutions, which they valued—and valued because they felt that they were identified with the safety and welfare of the Constitution—one after another abandoned, or handed over to their political opponents. At the request of those who now hold the reins of Government, the Protestants of Ireland had freely broken up a confederacy which they deemed essential to their own security, and which was endeared to them by many highly cherished recollections. It may be easy, perhaps, for the Minister or the politician to say to a high-spirited and
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warm-hearted people, "Abandon your ancient usages, the occasion for them has gone by. Your ancient associations and recollections are obsolete—you had better forego them;" but little he knows of the working of the human passions and feelings—but little he knows how closely entwined round a people's heart are even the customs and usages of their ancestors, commemorative of achievements in defence of their liberties, their country, and their religion, who fancies there is little sacrifice in their abandonment. These usages were abandoned, the bond of connexion by which the Protestant population was linked together was looked in proof of their devoted loyalty. He had no wish to say anything harsh, or throw any blame unnecessarily upon the Government; the impression in Ireland certainly was that these considerations were forgotten, and that Protestant claims and Protestant feelings were not sufficiently regarded by Her Majesty's Government. But he warned the House how, by the adoption of such a Resolution as that proposed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, they added insult to the wrongs of which the Protestants complain. He warned the House to beware how it taught them the dangerous and bitter lesson—a lesson which, once learned, is never forgotten by a people—that, politically, the meed of loyalty is ingratitude, while the reward of agitation and disloyalty is favour and concession. If that lesson be once impressed upon the minds of the Protestants of Ireland, one or other of two most disastrous results would be sure to follow—you will either see the Protestants of Ireland joining with the Repealers in hostility to a connexion from which, as they think, they will have received nothing but ingratitude and injury; or else, which would be in his opinion almost worse, yon will see again the collision and conflicts of classes and persuasions in Ireland—you will see the prospect of concord and harmony which now exists completely dissipated. You will see the one class exalting, naturally, in the triumph of their principles and of their Church, over the principles and the Church of their political opponents; you will see the other bitterly lamenting all past concessions, determining, as far as their individual feelings and conduct are concerned, to concede no more. These will be the fruits of the adoption of the hon. Member's Resolution; and that feeling will be generated,

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the worst that can be imagined for the tranquillity, peace, and prosperity of a country—a feeling which is blasting, blighting, and fatal in its effects, and utterly subversive of all social concord; the exultation of extorted triumph on the one side, and vain regret for fruitless concession on the other. The very feeling would be created which, under somewhat similar circumstances, had been so well described by the Roman historian—
"Majores quoque, si divinássent concedendo omnia, plebem in se non mitiorero, sed asperiorem, alia ex allis iniquiora postulando quam prima impetrassent, futurum, quamlibet dimicationem subitures fuisse, potius quam tales leges sibi imponi paterentur."
Captain Ralph Osbornedid not think it was a very satisfactory spectacle for the admirers of their academical institutions to see that the Representatives of the Universities, with one exception that might be taken, were to a man disinclined to consent to any measure of liberality. He denied, however, that the hon. Gentleman who had spoken last, represented the feelings of the Protestants in Ireland; he represented only the Orange party of that country, and while he talked of their loyalty, what did the right hon. Baronet think when the hon. Gentleman threatened, if the Government added insult to injury, that they would join the Repealers? [Mr. G. A. Hamilton: My observations had reference only to the adoption of the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield.] He accepted the explanation of the hon. Gentleman; but would remind him that his hon. and learned Colleague (Mr. Shaw) expressed similar sentiments, and threatened, if the complaints of his party were not attended to, that they might be found acting in conjunction with the Repealers. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hamilton) had carried them back to some remote period of ancient history, when, according to some ideal description of the Irish Church, given by Archbishop Usher, that Church was not Roman Catholic. He (Captain Osborne), however, would take a much later period; let him bring them down to the time when it was the Protestants in Ireland who fomented the rebellion. At that period the chief plotters of the movement in the North of Ireland were Protestants. Wolfe Tone was a Protestant, and so were all the leaders. Away, then, with this claim to particular and exclusive loyally on the part of the Protestants of Ireland. From
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a long acquaintance with that country, he could say, that the Roman Catholics there were fully as loyal as any Protestants in that House. And if in the course of time the right hon. Baronet should propose to give Members to the University of Maynooth, these Members would not be found raising that outcry against Protestantism which the Members of the University of Dublin were raising against the Roman Catholic religion of their countrymen. He apprehended the present question was rather that of maintaining the revenues of the Established Church, than of increasing those of Maynooth College. The right hon. Baronet, in his speech in the present debate, had, with his usual adroitness, in talking of Mr. O'Connell and the Oregon Territory, passed completely away from the subject under consideration, and they were left as much in doubt as to what his views on it were as before. But he did not think the right hon. Baronet could have identified himself with the views expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland. That right hon. Gentleman had revived the exploded analogy between church and private properly. He held in his hand the opinion of one whom, as he belonged to the right hon. Gentleman's party, he might deem an authority on this point; it was the opinion of Lord Brougham. The noble Lord said:—
"God forbid I should contend that the Church has the same power over its property as individuals have over theirs; there is no sort of analogy between them. The Church receives its property for performing certain service; private persons hold theirs unconditionally."
He might quote other passages from Paley and Sir J. Mackintosh to the same effect, but it was unnecessary. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland had also entered into the argument founded on the compact made at the Union. If any one argument was more untenable than another it was this; the Representatives of a small minority of the Irish nation, in order that their Church — the Church of the minority—might be held by them in perpetuity, and for certain other pecuniary considerations, sold the liberties of their Catholic brethren. They had heard the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) reject the compact as conclusive, and there could on that subject be nothing in common between him and the right hon. Secretary for Ireland. The

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right hon. Secretary had dwelt on the danger of establishing a precedent; but the precedent of Catholic endowment had already been established in Canada, and why should not that which had effected such good in Canada be applied to Ireland? He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, had rather misrepresented what had fallen from Gentlemen on this side of the House; the right hon. Gentleman argued as it they wished for the total subversion of the Irish Church; he denied the charge. For his part, he did not wish to subvert the Established Church in Ireland; but he thought it would be advisable to put that Church upon a congregational, instead of a territorial fooling. It should be remembered, in considering that question, that there were in Ireland 218 parishes in which there was not a single Protestant. He could not help lamenting the ignorance of the English people with regard to the condition of Ireland. What Lord Clare complained of at the time of the Union was still true—there was no country in Europe with which Englishmen were less acquainted than Ireland. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hamilton) had endeavoured to carry the House away to a distant period, when the Catholic Church did not exist in Ireland. But he was prepared to maintain that the Reformation had never been carried thither. There was a revolution in tithes, but no change of opinion; and so far from taking any pains to convert the Irish from error, the English Govenment rather took pains to confirm them in their creed, as the best means of getting at their property. It was not till the reign of James I. that any order was given to have the Bible translated into the Irish language; and it was a saying at that time, that in Elizabeth's reign they had Irish priests and English Bibles, and in James's reign English priests and Irish Bibles. Thus was the Reformation carried out. He was prepared to maintain that there was no similarity between the Irish Established Church and the Church of England. The English Church had been allowed to enjoy the peaceable possession of its temporalities because it was the Church of the great body of the English people. But with respect to the Irish Church the case was totally different. He would go further, and say that there was a vast difference as to doctrine between the English and the Irish Churches. It
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was stated in a work called "Ireland and its Rulers" quoted by the right hon. Secretary for Ireland himself, that
"The religion of the Irish Church partook rather of Puritanism than Protestantism, and that its clergy were much of the same creed as the Dissenters; they preached a sour and bitter morality, and were found to entertain narrow and pedantic views, unlike their English brethren."
What great names had the clergy of the Irish Church given to literature or learning? Where were the men it had produced to be compared to the Hookers, Butlers, Warburtons, and Chillingworths of the English Church? Would they select the names of Daly and Mant? The former had written a biography, containing some passages which the Bench of Bishops would not consider quite orthodox; and Archdeacon Mant had declared that the penal laws were calculated to benefit the Papists themselves. Then look at their conduct towards the right hon. Baronet on the National Education question. If they were held up as ornaments of society, what had they contributed to science or letters? What had the University of Dublin done for the advancement of learning? Let them show the great men it had produced. The noble Viscount the Member for Bandon (Lord Bernard) would perhaps quote to him the name of some little Dissenting minister, a great man in his own parish, and a distributor of tracts in the diocese of Bandon; but that was not the sort of great man he meant. One hon. Member had talked of the Establishment being a missionary Church, and of the expansive force of Protestantism; they might as well talk of the expansive force of bishops' purses. And he begged to read to the House an extract from a Parliamentary document, which would give some idea of the fortunes left by Irish prelates; it was a return of the probates of the wills of several Irish bishops; it had been before read collectively, but he would now give it in detail. The hon. Member then read the following document to the House:—

PROBATES OF WILLS OF IRISH BISHOPS.

£.

Stopford, Bishop of Cork

25,000

Percy, Bishop of Dromore

40,000

Cleaver, Bishop of Ferns

50,000

Bernard, Bishop of Limerick

60,000

Knox, Bishop of Killaloe

100,000

Fowler, Bishop of Dublin

150,000

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£.

Beresford, Bishop of Tuam

250,000

Hawkins, Bishop of Raphoe

250,000

Stuart, Bishop of Armagh

300,000

Porter, Bishop of Clogher

250,000

Agar, Bishop of Cashel

400,000

Making a total of

£1,875,000

in the course of forty or fifty years. What was the evidence of Dr. Doyle, given in March, 1825? He said that he respected the Established Church more than any other in the universe that was separated from the Roman Catholic religion; but he thought that the amount of its property was prejudicial to the interests of that Church, as well as to the interests of the country. He thought that no man not warped by prejudice would dissent from that opinion. The hon. Member for New-castle-under-Lyme had given as a reason for objecting to the grant to Maynooth, that it met with the approbation of Mr. O'Connell; and had made a petty squabble with that hon. Gentleman aground for denying this grant to a great nation. Now, he considered the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. O'Connell) to be a far-seeing and sagacious statesman. He remembered the time when a Viceroy of Ireland had been put into Coventry because, agreeing with Mr. O'Connell in some points, he had acted on that opinion; and now, notwithstanding this, they had a Prime Minister who made it a matter of congratulation that he had sent a message of peace to Ireland, and who was ready to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of a "convicted conspirator." On a late occasion, when he addressed the House, it was his intention to vote against the Government proposition, not because he objected to its policy, but because he objected to taking the money from the Consolidated Fund, inasmuch as a great portion of the people of this country were unwilling that their money should be applied to Roman Catholic purposes. He confessed, however, that in the course of that debate he was very much shaken in his intention, when he heard the speech of the hon. Member for Kent, who in a very courteous and bland manner held out damnation to all his Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. That speech first made him pause in his intention; but when the hon. Member for Elgin succeeded, and last of all, when another hon. Gentleman (Mr. Spooner), whose claims to an infallibility and hardihood of reasoning might
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well qualify him for a Birmingham Pope,—when that hon. Member rose and pronounced the religion of three-fourths of Ireland an awful delusion, he should not have liked, by voting with that hon. Gentleman, to have countenanced so gross an insult to Ireland. He would tell the hon. Gentleman that it was better to be insane in his charity, than rational in his malice; and he would refer him to a passage in Burke, where it was said, that in many points they of the Established Church agreed with the Roman Catholic Church; and that if mere dissent were meritorious, then he that dissented altogether from the Christian religion was most Protestant. He saw the hon. Gentleman turning up his eyes at this, as if the hon. Gentleman pitied him for what he was saying; but he asked the House whether his words were not more the words of charity than those which had fallen from the lips of the hon. Gentleman? There appeared to be a coalition between the extreme "voluntaries" on that (the Opposition) side, and the enthusiastic "involuntaries" on the other; but supposing they were to succeed in throwing out the present measure, and upsetting the Government, what sort of Administration, he should like to know, would they be able to form? Probably the hon. Member for Durham would be appointed Secretary at War, while the Great Seal would be tendered to the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, whose "dramatic readings" had lately afforded so much amusement to the House. He had now some personal interest in Ireland, and he tendered his thanks to the right hon. Home Secretary for the noble and statesmanlike speech he made on a late occasion. That speech had done more good in softening the feelings of the Irish people than any other speech which had been delivered. The Government of Ireland had too long depended on the chances and changes of parties in that House. He hoped now that a new light had dawned on that country—but he feared that there would be no ultimate settlement of the Irish question until the Irish Church was put on a different footing.
Viscount Bernardsaid, the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland had asked what would be the fate of the Irish Church, were it to be decided by an Irish Parliament sitting in Dublin? Now, he would ask the noble Lord, and he would ask the

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House, what would be the fate of the Act of Settlement itself—what would be the fate of Protestant property — what would be the prospect of that illustrious infant Prince on whom the affections of the country were centred, in the hope that at some far distant day he would rule over the country—what would the prospects of that illustrious Prince be if an Irish Parliament were to sit in Dublin? He would not trespass upon their patience for more than a few moments. But after the attack which the hon. Member who had just sat down had made upon the Protestant clergy, he must allude to it. The hon. Member had alluded to the wills of past bishops; why did he not allude to the conduct of the bishops of the present day—to the munificent piety of the Archbishop of Armagh, who had spent 1,700 l. in restoring the cathedral of Armagh, and in supplying the deficiencies of the Church of Ireland. It was not denied that the clergy of the present day performed their sacred functions with a zeal and attention and an assiduity which could not be improved. Gentlemen talked of having an equality of churches, but how was it possible to achieve that? Sure they might destroy the Protestant Church, and defray the expense of the Roman Catholic Church with its spoils; but he would defy them by that means to produce equality. Wherever there was a larger number, that larger number would have the greater power. He would not go into the subject further, but he would appeal to the House—he would appeal to the country—to maintain inviolate the property of the United Established Churches of England and Ireland.
Mr. Ellicerose principally to set himself right with the House, with respect to a statement made by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the course of his speech last evening. But before he did so, he wished to say, in a few words, that he cordially supported the present Motion. He should have been at some loss to do so, if he thought it would in any way have interfered with the success of the measure which Her Majesty's Government had introduced. But, inasmuch as he saw that it was practicable to come to such a vote without injuring the progress of that measure, and as he thought it essential upon this, probably the first step in a new course of ecclesiastical polity in respect to Ireland,
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to make a protest, so far as he was able, against taking from the taxes of the country means for the support of any ecclesiastical establishment in Ireland, he thought it right for that reason, and more especially on this occasion, to vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. He need not detain the House with going over the grounds over which his hon. Friend had so ably gone, nor need he attempt, in worse language, to repeat the arguments which had been concentrated in the powerful speech of his right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay)—a speech which, followed as it had been by the speech of his noble Friend the Member for the city of London (Lord John Russell), and the speech of his noble Friend the Member for Sunderland (Lord Howick), had completely exhausted the subject. To those speeches, complaining as they did of the Irish Church Establishment, no answer had been attempted to be given from any quarter of the House. Her Majesty's Government had stated that it was impossible for them to concur with him (Mr. Ellice) and his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield upon this subject; but in giving that opinion they had assigned no reason which could show to the House or the country that they had the least security of being able to stand where they were. They had taken the first step in a progression which must go on, let who would occupy the seat of Government. He had always taken a very anxious interest in this subject. More than twenty years ago he seconded a proposition of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the state of the Irish Church, his hon. Friend making at that time the same statement which the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward) had made in support of the Motion now before the House. Upon every subsequent occasion (he Mr. Ellice) followed the same course; and when he came into the Government of Earl Grey, which his right hon. Friend (Sir James Graham) left, he then declared his opinion upon this subject as distinctly as language could express it. He therefore could not undertand where his right hon. Friend (Sir James Graham) had been able to discover any statement made by him on his coming into the Government of Lord Grey that differed from the principle of the Motion now before the House, or to the terms of the proposition which at that time led to a change of the

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Government. He at that time stated that there was no intention on the part of the Government to take from the Protestant Church in Ireland means for founding a Roman Catholic Establishment in Ireland. The Government had not then obtained sufficient information to judge as to what purposes or to what extent they could make an appropriation of the property that might be derived from the surplus of the revenue of the Established Church. But when the right hon. Gentleman (Sir James Graham) left office, a Commission was appointed, in order to enable the Government to devise proper measures upon this subject. He forgot the precise statement made by the head of the late Government on that occasion; but although he refused to admit the intention of the Government to apply any surplus, if there were any, of the fund belonging to the Protestant Church to any particular object apart from that Church, he still maintained the power of the Government and the State to apply such surplus to any purpose which might be deemed expedient by Parliament. With respect to his own language, he remembered perfectly well that, on a debate arising respecting the settlement of the tithe question in Ireland, brought forward by the present Lord Hatherton, who was then Secretary for that country, he, in the course of it, took occasion to lament the loss which the Government had sustained by the retirement of his right hon. Friend opposite (Sir J. Graham) and his noble Friend the now Secretary for the Colonies (Lord Stanley). He (Mr. Ellice) thought then, as he thought now, that their retirement, under the circumstances of the case, and considering the principle upon which they placed their retirement, was more detrimental to the cause of good government and to the progress of good government in Ireland, than it was possible to describe. The Government of that day had a large party of friends and supporters in the House of Commons. The Irish people were at that time disposed to accept the conciliatory measures then proposed; and if at that period the Government of the day could have gone on unitedly in the course of policy in which they had embarked, it was his conviction that a very different state of affairs would have existed in Ireland than what they had now the misfortune to witness. In stating his regret at the retirement of his right hon. Friend and of his noble Friend, he found, on referring to the records of their proceedings
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—to which he himself contributed but little—that he used these terms, which afforded a remarkable confirmation of the statement which he was now making:—
"For what has this sacrifice been made (alluding to the loss of his two right hon. Friends), but that the Government should be enabled to act upon one principle, and to avow that principle now before the House—"
(That was the Irish Tithe Bill.) Upon some cheers being made, he (Mr. Ellice) observed:—
"I scarcely know how to interpret that cheer coming from the quarter it does. But if it means that the Government is not united and determined to act consistently with its declarations, I say that if I had thought there had been the least difference upon one principle amongst those who formed the new Government, and that principle was the one of advising the fit application of the surplus revenues of the Church of Ireland to purposes not dissimilar from those stated in the Resolution of the hon. Member for St. Alban's, I would have been the last man to have joined it."
He thought that language was sufficiently decided to show the House that his opinions had never swerved, and to those opinions he still adhered. He thought, encouraged as they must be by the new system of liberality adopted by Her Majesty's Government towards the people of Ireland, they ought not to go too steadily forward. To the first step in that progress he should give his most cordial support, though he at the same time felt himself perfectly at liberty to enter his protest by voting in favour of the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield against the principle of taking money for such a purpose as was now contemplated (when it could be taken from other sources), which was contributed by the taxation imposed on the people of Great Britain.
Mr. E. B. Rochesaid, that he could not but admit that the measure proposed by the right hon. Baronet in respect to Maynooth was a good one as far as it went. It was a measure that was introduced, he believed, in a good, an honest, and a kind spirit; and for that reason he regretted that the Protestant Church in Ireland should have been brought forward on this occasion. He regretted it the more because, urged by old and long-entertained principles, he should give his vote in favour of the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. The question of the Irish Church was not, after all, as important a question now as it was some years since. It was

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not regarded by the Irish people now with much anxiety, because, in the first place, the question was overlaid in the Irish mind by another measure which absorbed it, and which, he believed, was a much more important question; and in the second place, the people of Ireland had seen this question of Church reform trifled with by parties on his side of the House before, and therefore they did not believe that even the present advocates for it were quite sincere in their proposals for reform. This was the general feeling of the people of Ireland. He admitted that they were quite wrong in this impression. He had no doubt that the hon. Member for Sheffield was quite sincere in the course he was taking. At the same time the people of Ireland had seen this question taken up apparently with great spirit, by leading parties in this House; and after it had served the purposes of party it was laid down very quietly. He regretted that the question should be introduced on the present occasion, because he thought it would be much better that the other question should be first disposed of by itself. He regarded the Irish Church as a great abuse, and he deplored the existence of that abuse in his country. He could not forget that it was the great bone of contention which divided parties in Ireland; and he felt the greatest regret at its being brought forward now, inasmuch as it prevented all parties in his country from uniting together for the common good of their common country. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University was in great tribulation about the Irish Protestant Church, in case the Union should be repealed, and Irish questions should come to be settled by Irishmen; but he (Mr. Roche) asked him, whether, after the speeches made to night by the Whig leaders, he thought, that if they came in to power, they would grant very flattering terms to the Irish Church. Let him (the hon. Member) well consider whether Irishmen in Ireland could not settle this Irish question more fairly and honestly for both parties, and more honourably for themselves, than when they were obliged to come to this country, which the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin admitted in his speech to be a foreign country. That hon. Gentleman, in strengthening his arguments, said, that if they took from them the Church, they would lose the support of that party which he represented, which
1300
party, he added, was a garrison existing in a foreign and a hostile country. He had listened with feelings of humiliation when he heard a fellow countryman obliged to make such an admission. [Mr. G. A. Hamilton; I did not say so.] He therefore retracted the words; but the hon. Gentleman certainly used the words "a British garrison in a hostile country." He would tell the hon. Gentleman that if there was any hostility shown, it was all on one side. The people of Ireland did not regard him or his party with hostile feelings: they regarded the prejudices by which he was actuated with feelings of horror and contempt, but undoubtedly they did not regard their fellow countrymen with anything like feelings of hostility; and many of them hoped that a blessed day would yet come when they should all unite together for the common good of the common country. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had certainly received a large support of his measure of endowment for Maynooth; but let him remind the right hon. Baronet that all the support which he received from that side of the House did not originate from a sacrifice entirely of party to principle. Honest men supported his measure because they considered it to be just; and those who were not honest, because it was expedient. Amongst the lower grades of the Whig party there were murmurs and reports of a coalition. Many persons indulged in the idea that the noble Lord the Member for London, and the right hon. Baronet opposite, would yet be found hobnobbing together at a Cabinet dinner. What a scene would that be for the talented Gentleman who had constituted himself the historical painter of the House of Commons! They all remembered the story of Antony and Octavius dividing the empire amongst their immediate followers. In this case too, as of old, there would not only be spoils to be divided, but former friends to be proscribed. There would be the noble Lord the Member for London devoting to destruction his old ally the learned Member for Cork; the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, satisfying an ancient hatred against his highly talented Friend the Member for Shrewsbury; and the Home Secretary demanding the blood of his former friend and present enemy, the energetic Member for Finsbury. All those dreams were based on the hopes that Ireland would acquiesce in this coalition—that

1301
Ireland would be tempted by paltry bribes to sacrifice and to give up her allegiance to the cause in which she was embarked. He told the right hon. Baronet, in a candid spirit, that such would not be the case; that he would not be able to tempt Ireland by single measures of this kind. He must give her ample and full justice; for the people were embarked in a cause which they considered to be just and good. He believed that they were entitled, upon every principle of truth and justice, to a domestic Legislature. They should listen to their demands—they should argue this question with them—they should convince them that they were wrong, or concede their rights; the people of Ireland were not now to be intimidated. They should recollect how the aspects of things were changed in that country—that there had sprung up a body of men in that country who commanded the confidence, the attention, and the admiration of the Irish people. They had declared that Ireland would never be satisfied with anything short of a domestic Legislature; and if the Government of this country reckoned without these men, they reckoned without their host. He wished that this question would be settled amicably and fairly. He wished that the right hon. Baronet, who had great powers and great personal weight in the country, would come forward and settle this question upon a firm and enduring basis; but it was his duty to tell him, that nothing short of what he had already mentioned would satisfy the Irish people.
Viscount Palmerston: Sir, I can assure the House that I shall detain them but for a very few moments from that division to which they are anxious to go; for it is not my intention to go into any of those extraneous topics which have been treated of by hon. Gentlemen who have taken part in this debate, and which have not immediately borne upon the question we are now discussing. Sufficient, I think, for the debate is the question thereof. And the Motion of the hon. Gentleman raises a question of sufficient importance to render it unnecessary for us upon this occasion to debate the Bill which is now passing through this House. Sir, if my hon. Friend had brought forward his Motion at the time and under the circumstances in which he first gave notice of it, I should have felt it my duty to vote against him, unwilling as I should have been to take any step which should, by any remote possibility, have endangered the safety of the
1302
Bill, for the success of which I had a very great anxiety. But the course he has taken will enable me to give him my support; and I give it believing that those who oppose the Bill do not mean to take advantage of the fitful opportunity which his Motion gives them of dividing with him on this question for the first time. But the question which my hon. Friend has brought under the consideration of the House is this—whether the funds which are required for the purposes of the Bill are to be taken from the Consolidated Fund, or from reductions to be made in the Establishment of the Irish Church? I shall be prepared to vote for their being taken from the Consolidated Fund, if the Motion of my hon. Friend shall be rejected. But I have no hesitation in saying that I should prefer taking the course proposed by my hon. Friend, and on that account I shall give him my vote on this occasion. The first question that arises is, whether there can be such a surplus created out of the revenues of the Irish Church, after providing for the proper service of that Church for the Protestant portion of the Irish people? Can there be made such a reduction in the revenues of the Church as will afford the means of providing the sum required? I think nobody who has heard the statements made in this debate, with regard to the present condition of the Irish Church, can for a moment doubt that, after every provision which can be required for the proper discharge of the duties of that Establishment, ample funds might be found for the purposes to which my hon. Friend would apply them. Well then, Sir, is Parliament authorized to make that application? Why, I think no man who has voted for the Church Temporalities Bill can for a moment doubt or dispute that Parliament has that power. I hold that the revenues of the Church belong, or at least in the manner stated by the right hon. the Secretary for the Home Department last night—they are property held in trust by the State for uses; but, if those uses are satisfied—if the revenues are greater than are required for the proper performance of those uses—then I contend, and those who brought and supported the Church Temporalities Bill must also admit, that the State is authorized to make such other applications of that surplus as may, in the opinion of the State, be most analogous to the uses for which that revenue at present exists. Therefore, Sir, upon the same principle on which I voted for that principle

1303
of appropriating the surplus revenue of the Irish Church to the purposes of general education, I am prepared to vote for the application of any such surplus to the service of the College of Maynooth. Now, I know I shall be met by some one saying that this is a step beyond the Appropriation Clause; that the application contemplated by the Appropriation Clause was an application for education common to Protestants and Catholics; and that this College of Maynooth is an establishment confined necessarily to Catholics alone. But was that principle wholly repudiated by the Church Temporalities Bill? We did not in that Bill contemplate the application of any surplus to religious Catholic purposes. But was not a large amount destined to be applied to the relief of the Catholic portion of the population of Ireland? Why, when you relieved the Catholics from the Church cess, and applied the surplus of the Protestant revenues to the repair and maintenance of the fabrics of the Church, you did apply that surplus partly to Catholic purposes, because you relieved the Catholic population from a tax to which they had been subject. And you went a step further, I should be justified in saying, for by relieving them from that tax you made them more able to contribute to the support of their own religion. But, whether that principle was then affirmed or not, I am prepared to support it. I hold that the revenues of the Church of Ireland were primarily destined for the religious instruction of the people of Ireland; and if it be shown to me that the religious instruction of that portion of the people by whom those revenues are now possessed does not require support to the full extent to which those revenues go, I should not feel any difficulty in applying any portion that might be wanted for other purposes; not indirectly to the support of persons intended to be instructors, but directly to a use analogous to that for which they are now employed, directly in aid of the religious instruction of the people of Ireland. Therefore I am not to be deterred from giving this vote by the apprehension that any Gentleman may entertain, that if you once establish this principle, and apply to the College of Maynooth any surplus revenue by the reduction of the Protestant Establishment, you thereby lead to the ultimate consequence of the endowment of the Irish Catholic priesthood. Sir, in my opinion, that is a question which will necessarily press itself upon
1304
this House. Sir, it is impossible, in my opinion, that the present state of things in Ireland, in regard to the two establishments of the two different sects in Ireland, can be permanent. You have a population of 8,000,000, of which nearly 7,000,000 are of one religion, the Catholic, and the remainder of a different religion, the Protestant religion. You have a large Church Establishment, which is appropriated to the instruction of only half of that Protestant minority. You pay, you contribute, at least, by an annual grant to the religious instruction of the remaining portion of the Protestant minority. Can you possibly contemplate such a state of things as lasting? Is it possible that you regard as permanent the arrangement that 6,500,000 or 7,000,000 of the poorest portion of the people of Ireland are to receive their religious instruction from a priesthood dependent upon the eleemosynary contributions of their flock, going from door to door, from farm to farm, and from cabin to cabin, to collect the wretched and precarious sums of which their income is composed? Sir, I say that, in my opinion, whatever may be the feeling of any portion of this House, and of (as I admit it to be) the people of this country upon that subject, a provision by the State for the Catholic priesthood is a measure to which the Government and this House will at no distant period be compelled by their sense of justice to proceed. The great mistake made by Governments, not only in this country but every where, is to be too late in the measures which they adopt. For a long time their own prejudices—for a long time the prejudices of their supporters—prevent them from coming to that resolution to which each individual anions; them perhaps foresees that he shall be obliged to come. In the meanwhile, discussions enlighten the public mind; the grievance which exists creates discontent, and leads to the expression of it; at last the force of argument produces conviction, and the Government comes down with its measure, but comes when the time of proposing it with effect is gone by; and that concession which may be—no doubt on the present occasion it is—the result of conviction, and the spontaneous offering of modified opinions and a sense of justice, wears to the public all the appearance of a surrender to fear. It is so dealt with by those to whom it is made: and on the present occasion, though I wish to abstain from anything that may savour of criticism upon the past

1305
conduct of the Government, I must say that I join in that regret which has been avowed by others, that expressions which were recently used by the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) were calculated to convey the impression, which I have no doubt he did not intend to convey, that this measure was as much prompted by a consideration of State necessity as it was the result of the conviction of the Government founded upon argument and upon considerations of justice and sound principle. Sir, I conjure the Government not to be deterred by any of the difficulties into which this measure has brought them from going on in the path of which they have announced that this is only the commencement; but I do conjure them not to delay. I conjure them to lose no time in bringing forward those other measures, which I am convinced they must have in their minds, as a sequel to this Bill about Maynooth. There are many other questions of great importance, with a view to conciliate the goodwill of the people of Ireland. If the Government take advantage of the present moment to bring forward measures calculated to redress all the grievances of which the Irish people have just reason to complain, they may then hope that at no distant time they will be able to disband that British "garrison," of which we have heard as stationed in "a hostile nation;" but if they delay those further measures, if they think they can rest upon this one and single Bill—if they imagine that the temporary contentment which it may produce will be sufficient to accomplish the purpose which, as entrusted with the government of this great country, they ought steadily to keep in view, they may depend upon it they will be mistaken. This measure will then be justly considered as one yielded to apprehension, instead of being the result of altered convictions. On the other hand, if they pursue that course, of which this measure is stated to be the commencement, they may be the means of doing as much good to Ireland in future as, in my humble opinion, the conduct of that party of which they are the leaders has in former times been productive of mischief.
Mr. Sidney Herbert: Sir, I will detain the House only while I say a very few words. I will not enter into the question of the Protestant Church Establishment; I will make no allusion even to the time chosen by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Ward), though I do most deeply regret
1306
that this question should have been brought forward now, when, as I think, it will be very much misunderstood in Ireland, and when it will be most unfortunate that the unanimity which might have prevailed among the leaders of parties upon the measure now in the House, will be disturbed by the introduction of the expression of an abstract principle, which has no necessary reference to the measure itself—which is of necessity a barren principle at best, because the only effect it could have (were it successful) would be to destroy that measure itself. I should hope that this system of introducing barren assertions of principle into practical measures, had already led to so much inconvenience in the hands of the hon. Gentleman himself, that he would have been the last person to propose it. He might well recollect, that for three years a measure admitted by both sides of this House to be of paramount necessity for the tranquillization of Ireland, was delayed through the annual production of that suicidal course which so long hindered the settlement of the tithe question, and prolonged all the evils, all the animosities, and I fear, likewise, all the crime which tithe agitation produced. But I am led upon this occasion more especially to call the attention of the House to a statement which was made last night, and has been repeated this evening, in spite of the emphatic contradiction from the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel)—namely, that this measure has been brought forward, not from any sense of justice, not from any preconceived opinion of its fitness for the state of Ireland, or of the effect it would have in tranquillizing that country, but that it has been extorted by fear and through alarm created by the state of our foreign relations. I think it was shown by the dates adduced last night, that this measure was contemplated — nay, more, that it was already put into shape, long before any question arose respecting Oregon. It was stated first, that it was announced at the commencement of the Session, long before any suspicion existed in this country that the negotiation with regard to the territorial boundaries of North America, might be any subject of difference, or of anything but amicable arrangement. It was stated further, that this Bill was actually drawn, and the Roman Catholic authorities in Ireland consulted upon it, so long back as November last. I say more—that during last Session, when the discussion took place upon the Vote on Education, and likewise

1307
on the grant for Maynooth upon the introduction of the subject by the right hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Wyse), and upon his calling the attention of the Government to it in a speech on the subject of the deficiency of academical education in Ireland, my right hon. Friend (Sir R. Peel) stated that this matter was already under the consideration of the Government; and it was only the lateness of the Session, and the unwillingness to risk hasty legislation upon a subject so important, so necessary to the prosperity of Ireland, and so much involving religious feelings, that prevented him from then proposing a measure to the House. I can speak to a still further date; for communications were made to me by Members of the Government in private in reference to this very measure, and I was aware that it was contemplated. I say, therefore, that nothing can be more contrary to the facts, than to insinuate this unworthy motive—a motive which I think would be disgraceful to the character of the Government, and one which I am most anxious to repel, not only because I think it would produce an impression most unfavourable to those who conduct the Government, but likewise because I think, if that opinion were to gain ground, it would greatly diminish the good effect to be hoped from the measure. I very much regret, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macaulay) should have so studiously fixed this imputation upon the Government in forgetfulness of all these facts. I regret it much, because it appears to me that he was thinking less of the benefit this measure might produce to Ireland, than of the degree of party advantage which might be gained from it. [Cheers.] I perfectly understand the cheers of hon. Gentlemen opposite; but I draw a great distinction between the course which the Whig party has pursued upon this occasion, and the course which has been taken by one, I believe only one, exception to that rule. I am as willing as any man to admit frankly, and to express the thanks of the Government for the disinterested support given to them on a measure they believe to be right; I have no unwillingness to acknowlege generous conduct from public opponents; but when I see the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macaulay) taking a course so diametrically opposite to that pursued by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), I cannot but express my opinion that the studious ingenuity with which he tried to distort the motives, and assign the influence
1308
of cowardice and fear rather than of a sense of justice, does entitle me to express my regret that such expressions have been used, and attempts made apparently to injure the success of this measure in Ireland. I must say that if this opinion could be generated in Ireland, that the measure has been extorted by fear, all the advantage of it would be lost. And if, through that means, its healing qualities as a measure of tranquillization should be impaired, let the responsibility rest upon that right hon. Gentleman who has laboured to produce the effect. If, on the contrary, the anticipations of the Government shall be realized, and if it does produce a better feeling, a more attached feeling to the state of the Roman Catholic priesthood, then I say the right hon. Gentleman will, at any rate, have this consolation, that he has not been so far wanting in the duties of Opposition as to have in any way contributed to the tranquillization of that country. But I allude to the subject likewise for this reason, that I thins it would be most unfair to attempt to claim for the leaders of Conciliation Hall the credit of a measure which, I must say, I attribute to persons of a very different description. I have already stated that this measure was first announced in answer to a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Waterford; and if, from any external cause whatever, this measure has been quickened, then I say that it is due to those gentlemen in Ireland, those Roman Catholic gentlemen, and Roman Catholic prelates, who, not fearing the consequences of exposing themselves to great obloquy, and to great misrepresentation, and much abuse in times of excitement, have nobly stood aloof from that agitation, have refused any partnership in measures which they disapproved, and have shown that if a Government is determined to bring forward just measures, not as bribes, not as concessions, but because they believed them to be right, there is a Roman Catholic party, there are Roman Catholic gentlemen, there are Roman Catholic prelates, who are anxious to give the force of their example and of their influence for the promotion of prosperity and good order in Ireland. Sir, I undertook to speak very shortly; but I was anxious to vindicate the Government from these charges; I was anxious to vindicate them from the charge of inconsistency in bringing forward this measure, which, in my opinion, is one which they would have suported when in Opposition, as they now

1309
carry it when in Government. I was anxious likewise to vindicate them from the imputations of having extorted from them by menace, or by fear of foreign troubles, that which their own sense of justice would not have prompted them to yield. I beg the House to recollect that when agitation was rife in Ireland, when danger did exist, that was not the moment the Government chose for bringing forward this measure; that violations of the law were repressed by the law; and then, when a comparative state of tranquillity was secured, they did think it in conformity with their professions of governing Ireland with equal justice, to introduce measures in redemption of their pledge. I trust that in Ireland they will be received in the same spirit in which they are proposed; and of this I am sure that, whatever be the obloquy which may attach to the Government in this behalf, be it the railings of Exeter Hall, or the more brilliant and polished vituperation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, neither the one nor the other will deter them from doing that which their conscience tells them is necessary for the tranquillization of Ireland, and necessary, therefore, for the cementing together of the two countries.
Sir H. W. Barronsaid, it was a remarkable fact, that although that debate had continued for two nights, not one single Irish Roman Catholic had risen to express his opinion on the question before the House. As an Irish Roman Catholic Member, he could not vote that night without previousl tendering his thanks to the Government for the manner in which they had brought forward the question with regard to Maynooth. No man in that House had given to them a more firm, decided, manly and open opposition than he had done at all times and under all circumstances. But when he found them adopting a course which was diametrically opposed to the policy by which they had obtained power, he was willing to tender to them, in the name of his constituents and of the people of Ireland, with whose feelings he was well acquainted, his most sincere thanks. He thought that, consistently with this feeling, he could not vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. He conceived that it would be ingratitude towards the Government, and inconsistent with the respect which he entertained for the object which hey had in view, and the manner in which hey had brought the measure forward, if he were to vote otherwise than he intended.
1310
The Motion of his hon. Friend was inopportune now. He had been for many years in favour of increasing the grant to Maynooth. When he was told that it was the people of England who rendered this grant necessary, by maintaining the Protestant Church in Ireland, he wished to show them by his vote to-night that if they were determined to maintain the Protestant Church they must pay for it. The only way to bring it to their minds, and feelings, and senses, was by letting them know that while there was such an Establishment there they must pay for it, and must themselves suffer for maintaining it. It was notorious, notwithstanding the assertion of the noble Lord the Member for Bandon, that the Protestant Church was in possession of what had been for hundreds of years Church property—that the small minority, by force of British bayonets and corruption, extorted it from the Catholics. And now the people of England, and the British House of Commons, were determined to sustain a rich Church for the small minority, and for the richer portion of the people, while they allowed the great majority, who were, moreover, the poorest people in Europe, to support their own Church by their own voluntary contributions. But if they persevered in this course, they must pay for it, and must be made to feel that they paid for it. It was only by such means the injustice of maintaining such a Church could be brought home to their minds. He would not now answer the taunts against the Catholics of Ireland contained not only in the disgraceful petitions presented to this House, but also in the speeches delivered in this House, They had been taunted with every species of disgraceful conduct, profession, and belief. More unfounded calumnies were never uttered. When did they hear that the Catholics of Ireland made use of language such as that made use of in Exeter Hall—even in this House? Did the Catholics taunt the Members of the House with such disgraceful epithets, or turn round and call them heretics 5 The calumnies against the Catholics of Ireland expressed not only by those petitioners, but by their Representatives in this House, showed that, however much they might talk of religion and charity, they had none of either in their hearts ["Oh! oh! divide"]. He could only say, in justification of himself, and he believed he was expressing the opinion of the great majority of the Catholics of Ireland, that if the Government should follow up this measure by similar

1311
measures of justice towards the Irish people, they would be found to be the easiest governed people on the face of the globe. You cannot govern them by the sword—you can by justice. Only follow up this grant to Maynooth by similar acts of common sense and common justice—and you will find Ireland the right arm of England in the hour of danger, and proud to stand by her in the hour of her necessity.
The House divided, on the Question that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—Ayes, 322; Noes, 148: Majority, 174.

List of the AYES.

Ackers, J.

Brisco, M.

Acland, Sir T. D.

Broadley, H.

Acland, T. D.

Broadwood, H.

A'Court, Capt.

Brooke, Sir A. B.

Acton, Col.

Browne, hon. W.

Adderley, C. B.

Brownrigg, J. S.

Ainsworth, P.

Bruce, Lord E.

Alexander, N.

Bruce, C. L. C.

Alford, Visct.

Bruen, Col.

Allix, J. P.

Bruges, W. H. L.

Arbuthnott, hon. H.

Buck, L. W.

Archbold, R.

Buckley, E.

Archdall, Capt. M.

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Arkwright, G.

Bunbury, T.

Arundel and Surrey, Earl of

Burrell, Sir C. M.

Burroughes, H. N.

Ashley, Lord

Cardwell, E.

Astell, W.

Carew, W. H. P.

Bailey, J.

Carnegie, hon. Capt.

Bailey, J. jun.

Castlereagh, Visct.

Baillie, Col.

Chapman, A.

Baillie, H. J.

Charteris, hon. F.

Baird, W.

Chelsea, Visct.

Baldwin, B.

Chetwode, Sir J,

Bankes, G.

Cholmondeley, hon. H.

Baring, rt. hon. F. T.

Christopher, R. A.

Baring, T.

Chute, W. L. W.

Baring, rt. hon. W. B.

Clayton, R. R.

Barneby, J.

Clerk, rt. hon. Sir G.

Barrington, Visct.

Clifton, J. T.

Barron, Sir H. W.

Clive, Visct.

Bateson, T.

Cockburn, rt. hn. Sir. G.

Beckett, W.

Codrington, Sir W.

Bell, M.

Cole, hon. H. A.

Benbow, J.

Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Bentinck, Lord G.

Collett, W. R.

Beresford, Major

Colquhoun, J. C.

Bernard, Visct.

Colvile, C. R.

Blackburne, J. I.

Compton, H. C.

Blackstone, W. S.

Conolly, Col.

Blakemore, R.

Coote, Sir C. H.

Bodkin, W. H.

Copeland, Ald.

Boldero, H. G.

Corry, rt. hon. H.

Borthwick, P.

Courtenay, Lord

Botfield, B.

Cowper, hon. W. F.

Bowles, Adm.

Cresswell, B.

Boyd, J.

Cripps, W.

Bradshaw, J.

Damer, hon. Col.

Bramston, T. W.

Darby, G.

1312

Davies, D. A. S.

Hepburn, Sir T. B.

Dawnay, hon. W. H.

Herbert, rt. hon. S.

Deedes, W.

Hervey, Lord A.

Denison, E. B.

Hinde, J. H.

Dick, Q.

Hodgson, F.

Dickinson, F. H.

Hogg, J. W.

Douglas, Sir H.

Holmes, hn. W. A'C.

Douglas, Sir C. E.

Hope, hon. C.

Douglas, J. D. S.

Hope, A.

Dowdeswell, W.

Hope, G. W.

Drummond, H. H.

Hornby, J.

Dugdale, W. S.

Hotham, Lord

Duncombe, hon. O.

Howard, P. H.

Du Pre, C. G.

Hughes, W. B.

East, J. B.

Hussey, A.

Eastnor, Visct.

Hussey, T.

Egerton, Sir P.

Ingestre, Visct.

Egerton, Lord F.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Emlyn, Visct.

Irton, S.

Entwisle, W.

James, Sir W. C.

Escott, B.

Jermyn, Earl

Estcourt, T. G. B.

Jocelyn, Visct.

Feilden, W.

Johnstone, Sir J.

Fellowes, E.

Johnstone, H.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

Jolliffe, Sir W. G. H.

Ferrand, W. B.

Jones, Capt.

Fitzmaurice, hon. W.

Kelly, F. R.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Kemble, H.

Flower, Sir J.

Knight, H. G.

Ffolliott, J.

Knightley, Sir C.

Forbes, W.

Law, hon. C. E.

Forman, T. S.

Lawson, A.

Fox, S. L.

Lefroy, A.

Fremantle, rt. hn. Sir. T.

Legh, G. C.

Fuller, A. E.

Lemon, Sir C.

Gaskell, J. Milnes

Lennox, Lord A.

Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

Leslie, C. P.

Gladstone, Capt.

Liddell, hon. H. T.

Godson, R.

Lincoln, Earl of

Gordon, hon. Capt.

Listowel, Earl of

Gore, M.

Lockart, W.

Gore, W. O.

Lowther, Sir J. H.

Gore, W. R. O.

Lyall, G.

Goulburn, rt. hon. H.

Lygon, hon. Gen,

Graham, rt hn. Sir J.

Mackenzie, T.

Granby, Marquess of

Mackinnon, W. A.

Greene, T.

Maclean, D.

Gregory, W. H.

McGeachy, F. A.

Grimsditch, T.

McNeill, D.

Grimston, Visct.

Mahon, Visct.

Grogan, E.

Mainwaring, T.

Hale, R. B.

Manners, Lord C. S.

Halford, Sir H.

Manners, Lord J.

Hamilton, J. H.

March, Earl of

Hamilton, G. A.

Martin, C. W.

Hamilton, W. J.

Martin, T. B.

Hamilton, Lord C.

Marton, G.

Hampden, R.

Masterman, J.

Hanmer, Sir J.

Maunsell, T. P.

Harcourt, G. G.

Maxwell, hon. J. P.

Harris, hon. Capt.

Meynell, Capt.

Hayes, Sir E.

Mildmay, H. St. J.

Heathcoat, G. J.

Milnes, R. M.

Heathcote, Sir W.

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Heneage, G. H. W.

Morgan, O.

Henley, J. W.

Morris, D.

Henniker, Lord

Mundy, E. M.

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Neeld, J.

Smith, A.

Neeld, J.

Smith, rt. hon. T. B. C.

Neville, R.

Smythe, hon. G.

Newdegate, C. N.

Smollett, A.

Newport, Visct.

Somerset, Lord G.

Newry, Visct.

Somerton, Visct.

Nicholl, rt. hon. J.

Somes, J.

Norreys, Lord

Sotheron, T. H. S.

Northland, Visct.

Spooner, R.

O'Brien, A. S.

Standish, C.

Ossulston, Lord

Stanley, E.

Oswald, A.

Staunton, Sir G. T.

Owen, Sir J.

Stewart, J.

Packe, C. W.

Stuart, H.

Pakington, J. S.

Sturt, H. C.

Palmer, R.

Sutton, hon. H. M.

Patten, J. W.

Taylor, E.

Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.

Taylor, J. A.

Peel, J.

Tennent, J. E.

Pennant, hon. Col.

Thesiger, Sir F.

Philipps, Sir R. B. P.

Tollemache, J.

Pigot, Sir R.

Tomline, G.

Plumptre, J. P.

Tower, C.

Polhill, F.

Trench, Sir F. W.

Powell, Col.

Trevor, hon. G. R.

Praed, W. T.

Trollope, Sir J.

Pringle, A.

Trotter, J.

Pusey, P.

Turnor, C.

Rawdon, Col.

Verner, Col.

Reid, Sir J. R.

Vernon, G. H.

Repton, G. W. J.

Villiers, Visct.

Richards, K.

Vivian, J. H.

Rolleston, Col.

Wellesley, Lord C.

Round, J.

Whitmore, T. C.

Rous, hon. Capt.

Winnington, Sir T. E.

Rumbold, C. E.

Wodehouse, E.

Rushbrooke, Col.

Wood, Col.

Russell, C.

Wood, Col. T.

Ryder, hon. G. D,

Wortley, hon. J, S.

Sanderson, R.

Wortley, hon. J. S.

Sandon, Visct.

Wrightson, W. B.

Seymour, Sir H. B.

Wyndham, Col. C.

Shelburne, Earl of

Wynn, rt. hon. C. W. W.

Sheridan, R. B.

Yorke, hon. E. T.

Shirley, E. J.

TELLERS.

Shirley, E. P.

Young, J.

Sibthorp, Col.

Baring, H.

List of the NOES.

Aglionby, H. A.

Bowring, Dr.

Aldam, W.

Bright, J.

Anson, hon. Col.

Brocklehurst, J.

Armstrong, Sir A.

Brotherton, J.

Baine, W.

Bulkeley, Sir R. B. W.

Bannerman, A.

Buller, C.

Barclay, D.

Buller, E.

Barnard, E. G.

Busfeild, W.

Bell, J.

Byng, rt. hn. G. S.

Berkeley, hon. C.

Carew, hn. R. S.

Berkeley, hon. H. F.

Cavendish, hon. C. C.

Bernal, R.

Cavendish, hn. G. H.

Blake, M.

Chapman, B.

Blake, M. J.

Christie, W. D.

Blewitt, R. J.

Clay, Sir W.

Bouverie, hon. E. P.

Cobden, R.

Bowes, J.

Colborne, hn. W. N. R.

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Collett, J.

McTaggart, Sir J.

Collins, W.

Mangles, R. D.

Corbally, M. E.

Marjoribanks, S.

Craig, W. G.

Marshall, W.

Currie, It.

Marsland, H.

Curteis, H. B.

Martin, J.

Dalmeny, Lord

Matheson, J.

Dalrymple, Capt.

Mitcalfe, H.

Dashwood, G. H.

Mitchell, T. A.

Denison, W. J.

Morrison, J.

Denison, J. E.

Muntz, G. F.

Dennistoun, J.

Napier, Sir. C.

D'Eyncourt, rt. hn. C. T.

O'Connell, M. J.

Duke, Sir J.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Duncan, Visct.

Ord, W.

Duncannon, Visct.

Osborne, R.

Dundas, Adm.

Paget, Col.

Dundas, D.

Palmerston, Visct.

Easthope, Sir J.

Parker, J.

Ebrington, Visct.

Pechell, Capt.

Ellice, rt. hon. E.

Philips, G. R.

Ellis, W.

Ponsonby, hon. C. F. A.

Elphinstone, H.

Protheroe, E.

Etwall, R.

Pulsford, R.

Evans, W.

Rice, E. R.

Ewart, W.

Roche, E. B.

Fielden, J.

Roebuck, J. A.

Ferguson, Col.

Russell, Lord J.

Fitzroy, Lord C.

Russell, Lord E.

Forster, M.

Rutherfurd, A.

Fox, C. R.

Scrope, G. P.

Gibson, T. M.

Smith, B.

Gore, hon. R.

Smith, rt. hon. R. V.

Granger, T. C.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

Strickland, Sir G.

Grosvenor, Lord R.

Strutt, E.

Guest, Sir J.

Stuart, Lord J.

Hall, Sir B.

Stuart, W. V.

Hallyburton, Lord J.

Tancred, H. W.

Hatton, Capt. V.

Thornely, T.

Hawes, B.

Traill, G.

Hayter, W. G.

Trelawny, J. S.

Heathcoat, J.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Hindley, C.

Tufnell, H.

Hobhouse, rt. hn. Sir J.

Tuite, H. M.

Hollond, R.

Villiers, hon. C.

Horsman, E.

Warburton, H.

Howard, hn. E. G. G.

Watson, W. H.

Howick, Visct.

Wawn, J. T.

Hume, J.

White, S.

Humphery, Ald.

Wilde, Sir T.

Hutt, W.

Williams, W.

James, W.

Wilshere, W.

Labouchere, rt. hn. H.

Wood, C.

Lambton, H.

Worsley, Lord

Langston, J. H.

Yorke, H. R.

Leveson, Lord

TELLERS.

Macaulay, rt. hn. T. B.

Ward, H. G.

Macnamara, Major

Berkeley, Capt.

On the main Question being put,
Sir R. Inglishoped that the hon. Gentlemen who thought with him would not be put to the trouble of another division at that late hour, and that therefore the right hon. Baronet would be content with

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merely going into the Committee pro formâ, in order to sit again on Monday.
Sir R. Peelsaid, that on the understanding that the hon. Baronet and his Friends would not make any objection to the Speaker leaving the Chair, he would make the Motion immediately after they got into Committee, that the Chairman leave the Chair; but surely they ought to sit again to-morrow, if the discussion on the Scotch and Irish Banks were over soon enough. Indeed, he hoped there would be no discussion, but that he would be allowed merely to make a general explanation. [Mr. Hume: There will be a discussion.] If the discussion went on till ten o'clock, he would not ask the House to go on with this Committee. But they had already had nine nights' debate upon the Question, and he could not ask Gentlemen a second time to give way on their Notices of Motions on Wednesday after the readiness with which they did so before. He hoped at least that they should be able to get into the Committee on the Bill that day week.
Mr. Lawhoped that the Government would not leave hon. Members in uncertainty as to the course intended to be pursued. The hon. Member for Montrose wished to express his sentiments on banking to-morrow evening, and it would be impossible if he spoke to prevent other Gentlemen from addressing the House also; and he did think, therefore, that it would save the time of the House, and greatly promote the convenience of many hon. Members, if Monday was fixed for the resumption of this subject.
Sir R. Peelsaid, that if he gave his assurance that the discussion on this subject should not commence at a later hour than nine o'clock, he thought it should be considered satisfactory.
Lord Northland, as one who voted against the second reading of this Bill, would not lend himself to this factious opposition.
Sir R. Inglissaid, he distinctly understood, on going into the upper lobby, that the further discussion should not be proceeded with until Monday next.
Mr. Plumptredenied that there had been any factious opposition to this measure; but there was a strong feeling out of that House that the second reading had been brought forward very prematurely, and, as he had heard said, with indecent haste.
Lord J. Russellsaid, he did not suppose there would be much discussion on the subject of the right hon. Baronet's statement as to Scotch Banks, and that it would not be too late to proceed with the discussion of this subject to-morrow. He, therefore, thought the right hon. Baronet's proposal very reasonable; but he should be sorry to concur in the statement of the noble Lord, that there had been any factious opposition. The opposition had been carried on as fairly as possible; and he did not think the second reading had been hurried on improperly.
Lord Northlandsaid, he merely stated that he would not be a party to any factious opposition.
House went into Committee pro formâ, and having resumed, the Committee was ordered to sit again.
House adjourned at one o'clock.

Preamble
MINUTES.] BILLS. Public.—1a. Saint Asaph and Bangor and Manchester Dioceses.
Received the Royal Assent.—Sugar Duties; Glass Duties; Customs (Export Duties); Mutiny; Marine Mutiny.
Private.—1a. Shelsley Road; London Orphan Asylum.
2a. Fisher Lane (Greenwich) Improvement.
Reported.—Manchester Stipendiary Magistrate; Forth and Clyde Navigation.
Received the Royal Assent.—Thames Navigation Debt; Britten's Divorce.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By the Bishop of Down, the Duke of Buckingham, Earls of Wicklow, Roseberry, Eldon, Hardwicke, and Powis, and by Lords Campbell, Farnham, and Denman, from Meiford, and a great number of other places, against Increase of Grant to Maynooth College.—From Moira and Stratford-on-Slaney, for Inquiry into Course of Instruction adopted at Maynooth College.—By Earls of Wicklow, and Clancarty, and Lord Farnham, from Balrothy, and several other places, for Encouragement to Schools in connexion with Church Education Society (Ireland).—From Parishioners of St. Clement, Cornwall, for Revision of Rubric.—By Earl of Powis, from Clergy and others of Oxford, and several other places, against the Union of St. Asaph and Bangor, but in favour of the Appointment of a Bishop to the See of Manchester. — From County of Denbigh, and 4 other places, against the Union of St. Asaph and Bangor.—By Lord Denman, from Holbrook, and 2 other places, for the better Observance of the Sabbath.—By the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Brougham, from Rector and Churchwardens of Hardwicke, Dissenting Congregation of Strand Street, Dublin, and Inhabitants of Farnham, in favour of the Increased Grant to Maynooth.—By Marquess of Normanby, from Mayor and others of Cork, for Alteration of Law relating to the Treatment of Criminals.—By Lord Campbell, from Tradesmen and others of Pontypool, for Repeal of the 57th Clause of Insolvent Debtors Act, except as to Debts not exceeding 5l.—From Proprietors of Macclesfield Canal, for Regulating Railway Charges.—From Abernethy, Penpont, and Stirling, for Improving the Condition of Schoolmasters (Scotland).—From Inverness, for the Suppression of Intemperance, especially on the Sabbath.—By the Duke of Richmond,

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from Parish of Baraham, and several other places, for the better Regulation of Beer Houses; and from Presbytery of Alford, and numerous other places, against Railway Travelling on the Sabbath.

NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND).
The Earl of Clancartypresented petitions against the National System of Education in Ireland, and in favour of the Church Education Society, from thirty-two parishes: and, on presenting the following petitions against the Maynooth grant, viz., from the parishes of Shillelagh, Kilnorthen and Muclin, and from the Wesleyan Methodists of Ballinasloe, said, he trusted he might be permitted to say a few words with reference to the subject on which these petitioners had addressed their Lordships. I am very far from questioning the right of the State to provide education for any class of Her Majesty's subjects who may be deemed proper objects of such a provision, and may be willing to accept it at Her hands; and I should be the last person to deny or undervalue the peculiar and very strong claims of my countrymen, the people of Ireland, to the consideration and sympathy of the Imperial Government in this respect. But whether at Maynooth or elsewhere, I am decidedly of opinion that no system of education should be provided at the public expense without Ministerial responsibility, and that is not subject to the supremacy and absolute control of the State. Your Lordships will, I am sure, agree with me that there is no function of Government—no duty which a Minister of the Crown could undertake—which according to the manner in which it is fulfilled and the principles that regulate it, may be productive of such lasting benefit to the community, or, on the other hand, exercise so evil an influence upon society, as that of public instruction. It is, therefore, most important that Ministers should be held responsible to Parliament, as Parliament is (and at the present time fearfully so) to the country, that the public money shall not be laid out for educational purposes, except upon principles conducive to the welfare and future usefulness of those under instruction, to the general good of society, and to the dissemination of religious truth. Now, I believe, that no such results have flowed from the system of education pursued at Maynooth College; that originally founded for the legitimate purpose of "the better education of persons professing the Roman Catholic religion,"
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it has signally failed of accomplishing that object. At the end of half a century, and ere your Lordships are called upon to pass an Act to extend and perpetuate this institution, it is not unreasonable to ask, what good has it effected—whether among those who have been educated within its walls any have adorned the literature of the country—have been distinguished as men of science, or have exhibited in their characters any praiseworthy qualities referable in any degree to the moral or religious training of that College? I believe that such an inquiry would show it to have been an institution neither creditable to the State, nor beneficial to the country—that it has, in fact, proved nothing better than a Propaganda of the worst and most intolerant principles of Romanism, destructive alike of social harmony and of religious liberty, and rendering the very profession of Protestantism often insecure, and a certain cause of persecution. The unfavourable opinion I have expressed of Maynooth College, is, I believe, entertained by most people who are acquainted with Ireland; and, judging from the petitions that have been presented, the public in general are not more favourably impressed in behalf of that institution. If such an opinion is mistaken or exaggerated, there is a ready way by which the reputation of the College may be vindicated, and that is by an inquiry—by a searching inquiry into the whole system of Maynooth education, into the discipline, the training, and the class book of instruction, religious as well as secular. Such an inquiry has often been called for, and is most due to the country at the present time, when it is proposed to fasten this institution upon it by perpetual endowment; but it is especially due to the Irish Roman Catholics, whose interests you are so desirous of promoting. Without such previous inquiry, and a thorough reform of every proved abuse, I should, for my part, certainly feel it my duty to vote against any further grant in aid of Maynooth College, even did I not feel my discretion in the matter greatly fettered by the oaths which, in common with most of your Lordships, I have taken at the Table of this House. My Lords, in adverting to my opinion of the obligation of an oath, which nearly all in this House have taken, and which, rightly understood, must be equally binding upon all, I can truly say, that I speak with those feelings of deference

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and respect which are so justly due to those whom I have the honour of addressing, and with the humble but anxious desire to be set right, if my views of our common obligation be incorrect. But, my Lords, I have always been accustomed to consider the Legislature of this country as bound by certain and defined principles, in relation to the established religion. Whether those principles are well or ill suited to the present time, is not now the question. If they are deemed objectionable, it might be competent to review them. But while they are consecrated as at present by oaths and declarations, taken and subscribed in the most solemn manner, I cannot but view them as, in the strictest sense of the word, obligatory, and such as cannot be deliberately or knowingly violated in ever so small a degree, without, to say the least of it, setting a most pernicious and dangerous example. I do not consider that any oaths or declarations taken at the Table of this House militate against the most perfect toleration. If I did, I should rather forego the privilege of my seat in this assembly than take them; but I do feel, and strongly, that to give direct I encouragement to a religion which we believe and declare to be erroneous and delusive, and whose doctrines are directly at variance with the established religion of the country, is in violation of principle; and that I am bound by no less an obligation than that of an oath against doing aught to establish or increase the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority of any foreign prelate, and consequently of the See of Rome, within this realm. In no other sense can I understand the obligation or intent of the Oath of Supremacy; and if that is a correct view of it, it certainly appears to me to have a very decided bearing upon the question that at present so much agitates and alarms the public mind, and opposes a decided objection to your Lordships passing a Bill for the perpetual endowment of the College of Maynooth, thenceforward not subject to State control, but under the recognised ecclesiastical authority of the Romish Church, and consequently the supremacy of the Pope, and under the same authority propagating Roman Catholic tenets subversive of the Queen's supremacy in these realms. Upon these grounds I should consider the Oath of Supremacy as a bar to my voting for such a Bill. I am aware, my Lords, that there are some who deny that there is any
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religious question involved in the matter. With these I cannot agree. That there are others who ridicule the conscientious objections of the people of England against the proposed measure. With such I can have no sympathy. There are, however, many who argue that the principle was disposed of by the Act of 1795, and that it is, therefore, too late now to argue the question of Maynooth upon the ground of principle. My Lords, I cannot agree in this view of the subject. Looking at the title and provisions of the Act for the establishment of Maynooth College, and the circumstances which led to it, it does not appear to me that it did involve any violation of principle; it was an act of toleration, enabling Roman Catholics, at their own expense, to endow a college for the better education of the youth of their own religious persuasion, and licensing the performance of the Roman Catholic Church service within it. This, I think, was no invasion of the supremacy of the Crown; but one thing is quite certain, viz., that the Oath of Supremacy is still an oath obligatory, as far as it is still practicable, upon those who have thought proper anew to take it. My Lords, I trust the importance of the subject will be a sufficient apology with your Lordships for my having, upon the mere presentation of a petition, taken up so much of your time; but impressed as I am with the belief, entertained by others, here as well as out of doors, that the Oath of Supremacy does limit the discretion of the House respecting the institution of Maynooth College, I did feel it important to bring the subject thus early under the notice of your Lordships.
The Marquess of Normanbysaid, it was not his intention to accept the challenge of the noble Earl, as to whether his interpretation of the oath, or that which was more generally and more rationally put upon it, was the correct one. If that question should be revived in the course of the regular discussion of the subject, no doubt it would be answered, and he thought it would be better to postpone such matters until the whole subject was before their Lordships. But the noble Earl had stated, that during the last fifty years he did not believe that the College of Maynooth had produced any man eminent for literature and science. Now, he (the Marquess of Normanby) during his residence in Ireland made it his duty

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to make inquiry upon that head, and certainly his impression respecting the religious character and learning of the priests educated there was very different from that expressed by the noble Earl. Therefore he could not allow the remarks of the noble Earl to pass without uttering his dissent from them. Certainly no person could have seen that institution without knowing that it was conducted on a scale which was not calculated to render it very effective; but at the same time there was no ground for the sweeping assertion of the noble Earl, that no person had emanated from Maynooth eminent for religious character or literary attainments.
The Earl of Clancartyexplained that he had not made an assertion, but had only said that at the end of half a century it was a legitimate inquiry whether any eminent persons had been educated at Maynooth.
The Marquess of Clanricardesaid, his noble Friend who had previously spoken, and his noble Friend who spoke on the last night that their Lordships met, seemed to imagine that although the College of Maynooth had been instituted for half a century, no inquiry had been made into the mode of Education there during the whole of that period. But that was not the fact; and his noble Friends were mistaken if they supposed it was. Because, when the Education Commission was issued by Government in 1826 or 1827, that very matter was particularly and searchingly inquired into. He believed the whole of the evidence taken by the Commissioners was appended to a Report which was laid before Parliament, and which no doubt was to be found in the library of each House, and open to the research of his noble Friends.
Lord Colchesteradmitted the existence of the Report. The noble Marquess was not the only one aware of that fact. Still, as it was made eighteen years ago, according to the noble Marquess's statement, he did not see why a further inquiry should not be made.
Lord Broughamwished to take the earliest opportunity of doing what he had the means of doing—to give the most authoritative contradiction that words could give to a statement which had been ventured in another place, that a late article against Maynooth, which had most unaccountably appeared in a French
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newspaper, was the production of one of the Members of the French Ministry. He believed that attack had given the greatest possible concern and offence to the Ministry of that country.
The Earl of Clancartyobserved, that he had sought with great respect for the solution of a most important question. He had stated his desire to be corrected, if wrong, with respect to that oath which so many of their Lordships had taken; but he had not received any light upon the subject. No noble Lord had stood up to reply to his question. Perhaps it was because no one was able to give an answer to it.
Lord Monteagleobserved, that there might be various reasons, and good reasons too, for their Lordships remaining silent upon such an occasion. One in which he believed they would generally share was, that the assertion was so contradicted by all the facts that no answer was necessary. If the argument of the noble Earl was worth a straw, every noble Lord, and all the Members of the other House, who since the year 1795, or from 1800 up to 1845, had continued to take the Oath of Supremacy, and had voted for the grant to Maynooth—some hundreds or thousands of Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, according to the declaration of the noble Lord, had been guilty, not merely of misapprehension or of impolicy, but of a violation of the Oath of Supremacy. But he must say, that he could not find within the four corners of the Oath of Supremacy anything about Maynooth; and nothing required greater ingenuity, he thought, than to make it appear that a grant to Maynooth was a violation of that oath. As to the silence of their Lordships, it had been said that nothing created silence more than astonishment; and the noble Earl might have augured that the silence of their Lordships was caused by their astonishment at the noble Lord's assertions, rather than by their inability to answer them.
The Earl of Eldonpresented a petition from Bletchingly, in Sussex, against the grant to Maynooth, and was about to present others, when—
The Earl of Clancartyrose and said, that the noble Lord (Lord Monteagle) had attacked him with sarcasm and ridicule—an attack which none could make better than he—for putting a question in

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a respectful manner to the House. He felt that the Oath of Supremacy stood between him and Maynooth; and the noble Lord had stated that every noble Lord who, since 1795, had taken the Oath of Supremacy and voted for the Maynooth grant, or acquiesced in it, had forsworn himself. Now, he considered that the Act of 1795 might have been perfectly legitimate. The object of it was the better education of the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty. It was an act of toleration, not implying any infringement of Her Majesty's supremacy. But when the College became, as it subsequently did, a seminary for the purpose of disseminating views and tenets subversive of Her Majesty's supremacy, it was not right that the funds of this country should longer be tributary to its support. The noble Lord, instead of attacking him, should have stated how he understood the Oath of Supremacy, and what were its obligations. If there were no obligations, the caking of the oath was a mockery.
Lord Beaumontwas astonished at the noble Lord, because he betrayed the most profound ignorance of the Roman Catholic religion—an ignorance which many of the opponents of Maynooth could not plead. He stated, that at the time the grant was originally passed he saw no objection to it, because at that time it was for the better education of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The Roman Catholics of Ireland received their chief and main education through their priests; therefore the grant, which now was to prove the source of all education in Ireland—which was to give specifically, because all former grants had failed, a better education—was brought forward on the sole ground, and on the same ground, as former grants, and without any violation of the oath, even taking the interpretation of the noble Earl. But the point of ignorance was this—the noble Earl had said, that in former times the tenets of the Catholics were such that he had no objection to the grant. But now the noble Earl said, it appeared that subsequently to that period the tenets preached and taught in that College tended to the subversion of order; and therefore he called upon their Lordships to object to the grant. He would tell the noble Earl, then, that he knew nothing of the Roman Catholic religion; he was profoundly ignorant of it, if he supposed that any of
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the tenets or principles of the Roman Catholic religion were altered. It was the great characteristic of the Roman Catholic religion that it did not change.
The Earl of Eldonsaid, it was upon that very ground—namely, that the tenets of the Roman Catholic religion were unchangeable—that he felt bound to oppose the grant. The noble Lord presented four other petitions from Surrey against the grant.
Lord Brougham, presented a petition, from a number of individuals largely interested in railway property, residing in Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster, Leeds, Wales, Cheltenham, Derby, Rugby, Chester, Dundalk, Plymouth, Nottingham, Burlington, Edinburgh, and in every part of the kingdom, in short. They stated that they required the protection of the Legislature, because their property was involved to an endless extent in railways; and that they found themselves damnified in their property by the exercise of the powers vested in the directors who managed things in such a way as to include one railway within another, so as to absorb the property in which these individuals were concerned. Now, he must say, that he totally differed from them. He considered that they did not want protection; they had it in their own hands by the prudent and discreet avoidance of risking their property in railways. For he must remind them that they were liable to many other and worse risks by heedlessly vesting their property in railways. The directors might belong to another company, and it might be their interest to sacrifice the one company and ruin it. Or they might wish to purchase more shares, and for that purpose might give out a report injurious to the undertaking, or even pass a damaging resolution, and then, having bought the shares, revoke it, and let the price go up again. In fact, they were supreme, and the shareholders could not control them while they remained in office.

THE ARMAGH DINNER.
The Marquess of Normanbyobserved, that he believed information had now been received by Government with respect to his complaint against a constabulary officer, who had joined in drinking a party toast at the dinner given by the High Sheriff and Grand Jury of Armagh after the last assizes.
Lord Stanleyhad inquired into the circumstances, and found that the constabulary officers were invited to the dinner, and three of them attended, one of them in his uniform; and, after many other toasts, it was proposed to drink "The glorious, pious, and immortal Memory." A member of the Grand Jury immediately stated that he should not make any objection to it, but hoped it was not put forward in any party or political sense. The High Sheriff replied that he gave it as a usual toast, and begged that no party or political feeling might be supposed to be involved. The officers were taken by surprise, and two of them remained sealed and did not drink the toast, but the other rose with the rest of the company, and both drank the toast and cheered. The Lord Lieutenant had thought fit to mark his sense of the extreme imprudence of this (to say the least), by directing that officer's removal to another district. The officer had been ten years in the force, and upon the announcement of an intention to remove him, a representation was made from the Roman Catholic clergyman of Armagh and his curate, with several of the Roman Catholic inhabitants, expressing their entire approval of his general conduct, and their conviction that he had never manifested party feeling in the execution of his duty. Gentlemen who invited constabulary officers to a dinner, where they could not anticipate the toasts likely to be proposed, should remember the extreme embarrassment to which they were exposed by being placed in the position, at the spur of the moment, of either signifying a very marked dissent from the feelings of the company at large, or departing from their instructions, and being liable to the censure of the Government. The Sheriff had since expressed his regret that any act of his should have placed this gentleman in so invidious a position; and it was allowed by all (Colonel M'Gregor in particular), that this officer was a very valuable and useful member of the force.
The Marquess of Normanbyexpressed himself satisfied, and added, that he believed this was an appointment of his own; at all events, he knew the gentleman to be a deserving officer, and had no doubt he was led away by the weight of authority surrounding him. The name of the Rev. Mr. Henry., the Presbyterian
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minister, was to be added to the testimonials to his general good conduct.

THE SEES OF ST. ASAPH AND BANGOR.
The Earl of Powis, having presented six petitions against the union of the Sees of St. Asaph and Bangor, and for the immediate appointment of a Bishop of Manchester, said that he now proposed to lay on the Table a Bill to enable Her Majesty to make certain provisions for preventing that union, and for making that appointment. The latter part of the Bill was founded on the suggestion made in a former debate—that the measure would be incomplete without it; but it might be severed from the Bill without injuring the remainder. As his purpose was to obviate objections with respect to the prerogative, the Bill differed considerably from the former, and gave powers to Her Majesty directly, which the other only gave incidentally. He proposed that the former Bill be withdrawn; and that this new Bill be laid on the Table, read a first time, printed, and ordered to be read a second time on Friday, May 2.
Bill read 1a.
Lord Monteaglegave notice that in some stage of the Bill he would move a counter-proposition—that which was contained in the first Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, namely, for the application of the revenues of one of these Welsh bishoprics, not to the General Episcopal Fund, but for the benefit of the parochial clergy of the Principality. He should be able to show that the circumstances referred to in that Report now existed.
House adjourned.