to get rid of by bringing forward the question of the Church. You have no reason to believe that any danger will be averted by it, or that one wound of Ireland will be thus healed. Instead of healing old wounds you are only creating new. You could not do an act of more perfect and unmitigated mischief, without securing to yourselves the slightest degree of advantage in return. The real badge of conquest" of which we have heard so much will still remain behind-namely, the question of the land. Do not let Irish landlords think they can divert attention from the present settlement of the land of Ireland, which rankles in the minds of the Roman Catholic population far more than the matter of the Established Church. By this proposal you will remedy no existing evil; but only give a triumph to one party, cause the bitterest animosity and disappointment among the rest, and enormously increase your own difficulties. THE BISHOP OF KILLALOE: My Lords, I desire to express my high respect for the noble Lord who spoke last but one (Lord Lyttelton), but the more I respect him the more deeply I regret that he should join in supporting this Bill. I think his speech made one thing plainnamely, that the noble Earl who sits on the cross-Benches (Earl Grey) is not altogether so singular in his views as some may have supposed. It seems that his convictions are shared by many of those who sit opposite. What he is singular in is that he appears to have acted upon those convictions. I maintain, notwithstanding all that we have heard, that the attempt now made to disestablish the Church of these realms, not in a remote dependency of the Crown but in an integral part of the United Kingdom, is wholly unparalleled. You have modified the terms on which Church property is held; you have altered the arrangements of the dioceses; you have taken away jurisdiction from the Bishops, and have relieved some of them from the perform ance of Parliamentary duties; but a measure like this is wholly unprecedented in our history. Is there any justification for it in the opinions and authority of great statesmen? I think not. All the great authorities who have been cited had, I believe, a different plan for dealing with this question. They had before their minds the exclusive establishment of Protestantism in Ireland, with no provision for the hierarchy of the majority. Some of them thought of supplementing the VOL. CXCIII. [THIRD SERIES.] maintenance of the Establishment by some endowments of the Roman Catholic priesthood. You say that scheme is impracticable. I quite agree with you. But what right have you to cite those statesmen who were in favour of no such scheme as total disestablishment, and who denounced the exclusive Protestant Establishment solely on the ground that they thought something was wise and practicable which you say is impracticable? As to the sentiments of illustrious foreigners on this question, I greatly doubt whether any of your Lordships would attach great weight to their opinions on any other point of the British Constitution or of British policy, except this one question of the Church Establishment in Ireland. With great respect for those who have had far larger opportunities than I have had of consulting the opinions of distinguished foreigners, I think the same idea to which I have referred as being in the minds of distinguished statesmen at home was in the minds of these illustrious foreigners. They cannot understand the difficulty in a country like this of making a Concordat with Rome, and of placing all religions on an equal footing. The State finds in Ireland three great religious denominations-the Roman Catholic, the Protestant Episcopalian, and the Presbyterian. It cannot ally itself to the first, though it is the Church of the majo. rity. There are a hundred reasons why it cannot, but one is sufficient. hierarchy of that Church will not take your endowments on any conditions which you could accept. They know that they enjoy a greater amount of liberty in this kingdom than they would enjoy under a Concordat in any other country. Under those circumstances the State takes the next and most numerous body which it finds, whose clergy teach what the majority of the people of this realm believe to be the truth-a Church which is identical with the Establishment in England; the Church to which the Sovereign belongs; the Church recognized by the Estates of the Realm; the Church to which belongs the great majority of the landlords of the country, out of whose estates it is chiefly supported. The fact is that all property, and especially private property, is a griev ance to those who do not possess it. The law of entail, primogeniture, the hereditary privileges and rank attaching to Members of this House, are all sentimental grievances to the persons who are debarred from them. Indeed, I have conversed [Second Night. E The with many intelligent men in this coun- Protestant succession, and the good old try who have put forward as an intoler- cause-the cause of liberty all over the able grievance the existence of privi- world-the cause for which Hampden leged orders; and I would advise the died on the field and Sidney perished aristocracy of this country not to reckon on the scaffold. All this you must too confidently on their privileges escaping sacrifice, or you will not satisfy the Roattack. I do not believe, moreover, that man Catholic hierarchy. The Protestant the disestablishment of the Irish Church Church, I repeat, is a symbol of the settlewould remove the sentimental grievance, ment of property. You may draw a nice for that really rests on the social in- distinction between them, but you will equality of the Roman Catholic population; never persuade the mass of the people that and as long as the Protestant Church con- property set aside under trusts for the tinues to be the Church of the aristocracy highest uses is less sacred than property -as long as it is established in this country which appears to be set aside merely for and the Sovereign and nobility of England the advantage and comfort of individuals belong to it, so long will the sentimental who may, without check or responsibility, grievance remain. The source of the pre- scatter and squander it upon the most sent difficulty is that agitators trade on trivial objects-upon dogs and horses, and the passions of the Irish people, keeping old on degraded human creatures far less rewounds rankling and sore, and persuade spectable than those animals. You will the people that those evils which are the never get people to understand these meresult of the faults of their national cha- taphysical distinctions, or to understand racter are due to the English Government. that ecclesiastical property is less sacred The only way to meet such agitators is to than the property of individuals. Hence, if announce our unalterable determination to you confiscate the possessions of the Church maintain our Protestant institutions in you will endanger all other property. Church and State. I may be told that My Lords, I have not been a little surthis is the old cry of Protestant ascend- prised to hear the argument that because ancy-and in a certain sense it is so; but the Presbyterian Church was established there is a Protestant ascendancy which is in Scotland the Irish Church should be essential to the integrity of the realm. disestablished. The case of Scotland is The people of England being the majority not one in point. To make it so the quesof the people of the realm-being, as I tion of establishing the Roman Catholic hope they will continue to be, Protestants; Church in Ireland should be before you. having a vast preponderance in wealth, in In Scotland the question at the time to intelligence, and in habits of command; which reference has been made was not having the seat of Government among only of disestablishment but one of estabthem, and having traditions of Imperial lishment; and there is this difference beauthority-it is impossible but that they tween the Presbyterian and Roman Cathoshould, if they are united, possess an as- lic religions-that the former is at least cendancy in this Empire. Why, what is homogeneous with the Protestant feelings it that prevents you from establishing the of the people of England, which certainly Roman Catholic Church in Ireland? Do the latter cannot be said to be. Anything not you know very well that it is the Pro- that is particularly objectionable to the testant feeling of the people of England people of this country in certain papers and Scotland? Well, what is that but drawn up in connection with the PresbyProtestant ascendancy? It is quite pos- terian religion has been set aside, at least sible, indeed, that if these conflicts of fac- practically; but, my Lords, the Roman tion continue in England, a compact, solid Catholic hierarchy in Ireland have not body of Roman Catholics may, though a abandoned the principles of intolerance minority, obtain that preponderance which which that Church professes. On the 1st for several centuries Protestants have ex- of September, 1851, there appeared in ercised in the affairs of this realm; but it the Rambler, a Roman Catholic magais to be hoped that such a thing may not zine, an article, to some passages of which happen. The Established Church in Ire- I beg your Lordships' attentionland may be in some sense a symbol of ascendancy, but it must be remembered that it is also a symbol of the settlement of property; and if the Church is given up you will also have to surrender the "It is difficult to say in which of the two popu lar expressions, the rights of civil liberty or 'the rights of religious liberty,' is embodied the greatest amount of nonsense and falsehood. As these phrases are perpetually uttered, both by Protestants and by some Catholics, they contain about as much truth and good sense as would be found in a cry for the inalienable right to suicide. Let this pass, then, in the case of Protestants and politicians. But how can it be justified in the case of Catholics, who are the chil dren of a Church which has ever avowed the deepest hostility to the principle of religious liberty,' and which never has given the shadow of a sanction to the theory that civil liberty,' as such, is necessarily a blessing at all? How intolerable it is to see this miserable device for de ceiving the Protestant world still so widely popular among us! We say 'for deceiving the Protestant world; though we are far from implying that there is not many a Catholic who really imagines himself to be a votary of ' religious liberty,' and is confident that if the tables were turned and the Catholics were uppermost in the land, he would in all circumstances grant others the same unlimited toleration he now demands for himself. Still, let our Catholic tolerationist be ever so sincere, he is only sincere because he does not take the trouble to look very closely into his own convictions. His great object is to silence Protestants, or to persuade them to let him alone; and as he certainly feels no personal malice against them, and laughs at their creed quite as cordially as he hates it, he persuades himself that he is telling the exact truth when he professes to be an advocate of religious liberty, and declares that no man ought to be coerced on account of his conscientious convictions. The practical result is that now and then, but very seldom, Protestants are blinded, and are ready to clasp their expected ally in a fraternal embrace. They are deceived, we repeat, nevertheless. Believe us not, Protestants of England and Ireland, for an instant, when you see us pouring forth our Liberalisms. When you hear a Catholic orator at some public assemblage declaring solemnly that this is the most humiliating day in his life, when he is called upon to defend once more the glorious principle of religious freedom' (especially if he says anything about the Emancipation Act and the 'toleration' it conceded to Catholics), be not too simple in your credulity. These are brave words, but they mean nothing; no, nothing more than the promises of a Parliamentary candidate to his constituents on the hustings. He is not talking Catholicism, but nonsense and Protestantism; and he will no more act on these notions in different circumstances than you now act on them yourselves in your treatment of him." My Lords, when we find such sentiments entertained by Roman Catholics, I say, without meaning them any offence, that self-preservation requires us to defend the Established Church in Ireland. On Motion of the DUKE of ARGYLL the further debate on the said Motion adjourned to Monday next. LIQUIDATION BILL. [H.L.] A Bill to facilitate Liquidation in certain Cases of Bankruptcy Arrangement and Winding-upWas presented by The Lord WESTBURY; read 1. (No. 181). House adjourned at One o'clock, A.M., to Monday next, Eleven o'clock. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Friday, June 26, 1868. The House met at Two of the clock. MINUTES.] SELECT COMMITTEE County Financial Arrangements, Mr. Clive added. SUPPLY-Considered in Committee -Resolutions [June 25] reported. Ordered- Colonial Governors' Pensions Act Amendment*; Medway RegulaFirst Reading - Medway Regulation Act Contion Act Continuance *. tinuance [196]. PUBLIC BILLS * Second Reading-Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Supplemental (No. 2)* [195]. Committee-Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market (re-comm.) [139] Debate adjourned; Consular Marriages [188]; Bank Holidays and Bills of Exchange (re-comm.) * [180]. Report-Prisons (Scotland) Administration Acts Amendment [155-197]; Consular Marriages* [188]; Bank Holidays and Bills of Exchange Third Reading - Renewable Leasehold Conver(re-comm.) [180]. sion (Ireland) Acts Extension* [182]. Withdrawn-Sale of Liquors on Sundays (Ireland) (re-comm.)* [138]. SCHOOLS INQUIRY COMMISSION. MR. BEACH said, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, What course the Government intend to take with reference to the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commissioners ? LORD ROBERT MONTAGU said, in reply, that the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commissioners would fill about twenty-four thick octavo volumes, eleven of which had already been published. Owing to the voluminous character of the documents, Her Majesty's Government had not been able so to study and consider them as to arrive at any decision with respect to the legislation which they would recommend upon the subject. IRELAND-ROYAL SCHOOL OF BANA GHER.-QUESTION, MR. G. MORRIS said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Royal School of Banagher has not been closed for the last two years; why no Head Master has been during that period appointed; and, what has become of the endowment and emoluments reported by the Royal Commission in 1858 as belonging to that School? THE EARL OF MAYO, in reply, said, he was sorry to say that the School had been closed for a considerable time in consequence of two causes. First, an endeavour had been made to see whether an arrange ment more advantageous to the public might not be made with regard to the School by joining it with some other similar establishment; and secondly, great difficulty had been experienced in getting a competent person to accept the office of Head master, owing to the lowness of the salary. The endowments and emoluments belonging to the School had been received by the Commissioners of Education. localities, been carried out in all the ports which desired it. In the metropolis, however, greater and quite unexpected difficulties presented themselves. After making various attempts and labouring for more than two months, we had to relinquish the task and come to Parliament for additional powers. Thus arose the necessity for the present Bill. The object, therefore, of the Government was merely to carry out the policy which had been originated by the Opposition and accepted by the House. The real question at issue is, whether the annual loss, which is due to a sense of the risk of a re-introduction MEROPOLITAN FOREIGN CATTLE MAR- of the cattle plague, together with the KET (re-committed) BILL. (Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. Hunt) Order for Committee read. SIR ANDREW AGNEW asked whether it was competent for his right hon. Friend (Mr. Milner Gibson) to move at this stage the Amendment of which he had given Notice, and which, if carried, would have the effect of defeating the measure? MR. SPEAKER said, it was quite competent for the right hon. Member to move the Amendment. present value of the loss which would ensue if the cattle plague was re-introduced, exceeds the annual injury to trade from those restrictions which may be necessary for security? If that question is answered in the affirmative, then there arises a further issne-namely, by what means can we attain the maximum of security with the minimum of injury? In each case, the House will observe, the question which has to be decided is merely a balance of advantages. The decrease of importation has to be measured against the risk of loss, and the actual losses to our home stock. The trade in foreign cattle has to be put into one scale of the balance, the production of home cattle in the other. Let the House first turn their attention to the one scale and then to the other. What is this "trade? What foreign cattle are imported? There is no trade in foreign store stock. Lean cattle never have, to any extent, been brought from abroad. Thus Mr. Rudkin, the Chairman of the Markets Committee, asserted that "there were never many store cattle" in the metropolitan market; "a few sterks and half-lean things did come from time to time, but very few comparatively." Why is this? Because foreign animals are not fit for store stock. Mr. Kilby, in his evidence, said that farmers all agree that foreign animals are "constitutionally unfit." Mr. Dickson asserted that "they never make much of animals," and that "the country is far better without them." Mr. Symonds testified that they are "practically useless for grazing purposes." While Archer, a witness against the Bill, said that we do not require "any foreign cattle as store stock," and that "none should be used for grazing purposes." Professor Strangeways expressed himself strongly as "against the importation of foreign store cattle entirely." The LORD ROBERT MONTAGU: Sir, The first witness who was produced in opposition to the Bill asserted a proposition in which all will readily agree. He said"I think the Cattle Plague has taught us a lesson by which we ought to profit.' The fruit of that lesson is the Bill now before the House. Yet I cannot entirely claim for Her Majesty's Government the origination of the present Bill. It has sprung rather from the House itself; I may even say, from a Member of the Opposition. The House last year determined that parts of ports should be defined for the reception and slaughter of foreign animals; and a Member of the Opposition desired to insert a clause to make it compulsory on the Government to effect this purpose, and on the market authority in each town to provide land for a separate foreign market. But as it had not been ascertained what towns would desire to import foreign cattle on those terms, and as the circumstances and localities of those towns were not known, the House determined merely to give the Privy Council the necessary powers, on the understanding that they should be exercised without delay. That policy has, after considerable labour, and the examination of the several foreign trade, therefore, is wholly confined to fat cattle which are destined for immediate slaughter. And the question is narrowed to this-what is to be done with foreign cattle during the short period intervening between their importation and their death? As the foreign fat cattle have to be weighed against English stock, let the House consider the relative characters and values of the two. It seems to have been admitted by the witnesses on both sides, that foreign cattle are cheaper and worse than English cattle. Thus Archer, a witness against the Bill, testified that "foreign meat is, without exception, cheaper than English; and that the price depends entirely upon the quality." As all concurred in that testimony, it is useless to enlarge upon it. The destination, moreover, of the foreign fat cattle is different from the ultimate destination of English cattle. The foreign meat falls into the hands of the large wholesale traders (that is, carcase butchers, shipping agents, and army and navy contractors); while some of it is eaten by the poorest classes of large towns. This fact also was generally admitted. Thus Mr. Symonds told the Committee that "it is a different class of butcher who kills the foreign cattle" namely, the "carcase but cher." Mr. Lintott, a Brighton butcher, cor roborated this evidence. Mr. Rudkin, the Chairman of the Markets Committee, was asked "What percentage of home cattle is killed by carcase butchers?-Very small. How much of the foreign supply ?—A large proportion." Mr. Woodley, a large carcase butcher, and a member of the Common Council of the City, said that "Foreign meat goes chiefly into the hands of wholesale traders, while the coarse parts go to the low thickly populated districts." Hence, in conformity with the evidence of Thomas Harrison, it may be taken that at least three-fourths of the supply of foreign cattle go back to the neighbourhood of the place where they were landed. Why, it may be asked, are foreign cattle so much cheaper and so much worse than English cattle? Something depends upon the breed. This is inferior; for the foreign witnesses, who appeared against the Bill, averred that just before the breaking out of the cattle plague they had begun to import English bulls into foreign countries, with the intention of raising somewhat the quality of foreign cattle. Since the cattle plague, however, they have ceased to import, and they are not likely to import any But more bulls for many years to come. even if the breeds were equal to the English, yet the cattle must always be inferior, for they are all grass-fed. If they fed their cattle abroad as highly as we do in England, then it would be impossible for them to pay the freight to this country, and yet compete in our markets. It is true that now and then some few good beasts have come over to England, and have fetched exceptionally high prices. One of the witnesses, a German, of the name of Prenzlow, said that a few that he brought over sold for £27 a head; he was asked how he obtained such an unusually high price for foreign beasts, and he stated that the reason was that they were so good that "the retail butchers could make use of them." Such cattle are smuggled by night into the West End by the retail butchers, who are willing to give this high price, because it is, nevertheless, lower than the price of home cattle. But they smuggle them in clandestinely by night, because they would lose their custom if it were known that they kill foreign beasts. This rests on the evidence of many witnesses, as Blackman, Brewster, and Rudkin. While Gebhart, a German witness, who had been brought over in opposition to the Bill, said that— "Only the very best foreign beasts go to the West End butchers, and they are smuggled in by night, so as not to be seen; but all the others go to the poorer classes." It may be concluded, therefore, that the foreign trade is a trade in a very inferior article; and also that it is a trade in an article which is used for a totally different purpose; so that there can be no clashing between the English and foreign cattle trade. The case with us lately has been this-Pharaoh's seven lean kine have come up from across the water and have eaten up our seven fat kine in England. The next point to be considered is the injury to this foreign trade by any restrictions which may be necessary for security. It may be stated generally, that importation depends on the relative prices in this and in the foreign country. Many of the witnesses against the Bill wanted to make out that the price of cattle here depends on the importation from abroad. That is putting the cart before the horse. How is it that importation takes place? A man sits down and calculates what the price of cattle abroad, together with the freight to this country, would come to; and if, on comparing this sum with the price of cattle |