He

ever he cut across an educational institu- | protest, and there was no opposition to tion it must be treated with a tender it of which the forms of the House would hand. The right hon. Gentleman also permit to which he would not be a party said that, when the time came to treat at every stage. The fact was the counwith Trinity College, Dublin, they would try had not had time to consider the have to treat it also with the same tender question. The measure of the right hand. But there was no analogy be- hon. Gentleman and the sketch which he tween the two cases. Maynooth was not gave of his proposals in his election an educational institution in the sense in speeches were not one and the same which the right hon. Gentleman used thing, and it was necessary that the conthat word. It was simply an institution stituencies should be further educated for the education of the priests of the before a decision upon it was arrived at. Roman Catholic Church. He did not He, for one, most decidedly objected to say this in hostility to Maynooth, for he having a measure involving consequences would apply the same test to an institu- so important hurried through Parliament tion for educating Protestant clergymen; because a large majority chose to oppress but Trinity College sent out a vast num- a minority. Many hon. Members, no ber of laymen every year. He was one doubt, were by no means anxious to go of those who thought that the proposed back again to their constituents, but to change was one with which the Irish him it was a pleasure to visit his, living, people, taken as a whole, had no sym- as he did, constantly among them. If, pathy, and one which would be regarded after the constituencies had been connot as a concession to what the right sulted on a Bill which assumed a hon. Gentleman at the head of the Go- new form, and which involved proposals vernment called the irresistible tendency which at the recent election were not of the age to religious liberty, but as a thoroughly understood, the verdict of mere sop to men who were supposed to the country were favourable to the policy be disloyal. of the Government, he for one would submit to that verdict, but he declined to entertain the Bill as things stood. should like to know how it was that such silence was maintained on the other side of the House that evening; and how no attempt was made to answer the convincing speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North-east Lancashire (Mr. Holt). He was convinced that that speech was not answered because it could not be answered. asked to degrade the Protestant Church in favour of the Romish Church. If the House had been asked to divide the funds of the Protestant Church in Ireland with the members of the Roman Catholic persuasion in that country, there might have been something like justice in such a proposal, but it was unjust to take the funds of the Irish Church and distribute them amongst poorhouses, that ought to be supported by the land. There seemed to be a great desire among those who sat on the Ministerial Benches to stifle discussion on the subject, and the Speaker had expressed himself in stronger terms on that point that evening than he had ever heard him use on any previous occasion. Men expressing Liberal views had altered their opinions about the Irish Church. Let them answer on the Ministerial side, and let

MR. GREENE, having referred to the fact that the Motion which he had made last year to the effect that the funds of the Irish Church should not be devoted to the support of any religious denomination whatsoever, had been supported by Mr. Mill and other Liberal Members, expressed his regret that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Sinclair Aytoun) had not been able to bring forward his Instruction that day; he also regretted that it had been his own lot to come into that House to meet men who, in his opinion, were departing so far from the paths of honesty in the example they were setting to the country. ["Oh, oh!" The question under discussion he maintained had been brought forward for mere party purposes. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government could not lay his hand on his heart and say that he had not taken it up with the view to gaining Office; and he certainly must give him credit for having, at least, displayed considerable tact in the matter, for he had adopted a course in following which he knew he must draw along with him Dissenters, Roman Catholics, Infidels, Atheists, and all extreme men of that kind. Against the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman he must, however, in the strongest manner

They were

go

it not go forth that, having been chal-portunity of expressing their dissent lenged from the Opposition side, nothing from the opinions which the learned was said by the supporters of the Bill Gentleman had so eloquently expressed in reply. He hoped the debate would upon that point in his speech on the be continued, and that they should not second reading of the Bill. He prointo Committee that night. Gentle- tested against that Bill being hurried men who supported the Bill might rely through the House without its receiving upon it that the country was not with the fullest consideration. Neither he nor them. [Laughter.] Gentlemen might any of those with whom he acted, had laugh; but they would not laugh so been shaken for one moment in their much when Parliament was dissolved. opposition to the dangerous principles Nothing made a man so serious as to of the Bill; but looking to the interests talk to him of re-election. of his constituents, to their future hopes and prospects, he considered that he would be a bad friend to them, if, after the majority of the House had carried the principle of the measure in a constitutional manner, he refused to give any assistance to the improvement of the terms it had made with the Church. On that ground, if the Bill were carried through Committee, he should do his best to improve it, and would join with either side of the House in the endeavour: he was not disposed to join with those who attributed unworthy motives to those who had brought forward the Bill; but, at the same time, he thought that they had been greatly mistaken, and that the measure was dangerous to the country and prejudicial to the interests of the Church. Disestablishment was a dangerous alienation of religion from the State; and the Bill was unjust and ungenerous unjust to the laity, and ungenerous to the clergy. All he trusted was that in their legislation the House would respect the cause of religion.

MR. LEFROY said, that he should reserve any comments upon the details of that measure until he had an opportunity of bringing his own Amendments before the Committee. With respect to its principles or, rather, its no-principles of disendowment and disestablishment, he should not trespass upon the attention of the House, for the dangers of those steps had been so ably commented upon by right hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, and especially by his right hon. Colleague the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), that he did not feel at liberty to dwell at greater length upon the subject. He would only say with respect to the powerful speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), that whilst he fully sympathized with his views regarding disendowment, he regretted that the learned Gentleman did not go as far as he himself did on the question of disestablishment. He thought, however, that if he had enjoyed his experience of the importance of connecting the State MR. WHALLEY asserted that there with religion in Ireland, and if he knew was not in the House any Member more the dangers that would issue from their anxious than he to hasten the settlement separation, and could anticipate the dis- of this question. The principle of the appointment that would be occasioned to measure was that the Church in Ireland the residents in the country, he would should be disestablished-and, incidentnot, he was sure, have yielded as much ally, disendowed. That principle had upon the question of disestablishment been approved by the country, and as he had done. He must also express therefore the sooner the House acted a difference of opinion from his learned upon it the better. In spite of the Colleague (Dr. Ball) on a subject which taunts of the hon. Member for North had been considered of late-the subject Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) he of levelling up. He would never for any would venture to express his thanks to object vary the line of conduct he thought the Prime Minister for having brought it was his duty to pursue, and in accord- the measure forward, though he trusted ance with that feeling he must express a the right hon. Gentleman would be willdifference of opinion from his learned ing to listen to any suggestions that Friend. He felt more compelled to do might be made on either side of the that, inasmuch as the great proportion House with regard to the details. The of the constituency they both repre- names of the right hon. Gentleman and sented, expected him to take that op- of the President of the Board of Trade, [Committee.

a

if guarantees for anything, were gua- every principle which he had recognized rantees for the principles of Free Trade, to endow permanently those institutions and of a fair stage and no favour. He under the guise of charities. Such a meabelieved that no fewer than seventeen sure would, in fact, inflict the greatest seats had been won by the Opposition possible curse upon Ireland, sow the in consequence of a person of unhappy seed of future discord in that distracted reputation named Murphy having raised country, and retard indefinitely the great the Protestant standard in the county of objects which they all had in view. He Lancaster. Now, he had been to a cer- had given notice early in the evening of tain extent associated with that indivi- a proposal that the surplus funds of the dual, and he would confess, in spite of Irish Church should be devoted to paywhat had fallen the other day from the ing off the National Debt; and, although Home Secretary, that he was at the pre- the forms of the House might preclude sent time endeavouring to get a dozen his bringing that Motion forward, he Mr. Murphys to go about the country submitted that it offered a fair and raising the Protestant standard when reasonable solution of their present diffithis question was got rid of. He re- culty. When, he would ask, had Iregretted to find himself separated from land applied for any money for lunatics, the hon. Member (Mr. Newdegate) by idiots, and other afflicted persons withthis question of the flesh pots of Egypt, out getting it ? And he maintained and he trusted that when the Bill had that for every pound appropriated in once passed there would remain nothing Scotland, England, or Wales to the to keep Protestants asunder. Since he purposes to which the surplus funds of had sat in that House he had given the Irish Church were intended to be expression to views which he believed devoted five at least were at this mowere those of the great majority of ment so applied in Ireland. He, therethe people of this country. He dif- fore, entreated them to pause before fered from Roman Catholics, not on they created, by means of these funds, account of their religion, but because a gigantic system of charity in a counhe would not recognize any foreign try in which, above all others, it was Power within the realm. He wished most essential that all such money to make an appeal to the right hon. should be strictly kept under the conGentleman at the head of the Go- trol of the givers. vernment, who, according to the news- MR. CHARLEY congratulated the papers, was in frequent communica- Prime Minister on having received the tion with the heads of the Roman Ca- benediction of the hon. Member for tholic hierarchy as to the arrangement Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) who had of the details of that Bill. The heads been reconciled to the Church of Rome of the Roman Catholic hierarchy evi- over the prostrate form of the Protestant dently took the same view as he (Mr. Church in Ireland. He also congratulated Whalley) did of that matter namely, the Romish Church on the convert she had that the Protestant Establishment in Ire- made in the person of the hon. Member. land was their great buttress and sup- The hon. Member had spoken of Mr. port—that it afforded a pretext for the Murphy in no complimentary terms; but continuance of the Maynooth Grant and he believed the hon. Member was one of the £1,000,000 sterling obtained from the the executive of the Protestant Electoral public for Roman Catholic purposes in Union, who, it was generally understood, England and Ireland, and they conse- employed Mr. Murphy to go about the quently objected to allowing the Irish country lecturing. They were told that Church to be disestablished unless May- this question had been amply discussed. nooth were at the same time endowed, It would take years to discuss it amply, and the surplus funds of the Church and they were now only at the beginning were applied to lunatic asylums, Sisters of the discussion. He had no wish to of Mercy, and other institutions in con- say anything disrespectful of the Prime nection with which the money so applied Minister; but he must say that the right would inevitably come under their con- hon. Gentleman owed his present positrol. He would, therefore, ask the right tion to the united bigotry of England, hon. Gentleman, with regard to the fur- Scotland, and Ireland. To the bigotry ther appropriation of those funds, whe- of English liberationists, who were opther it was not in direct opposition to posed to all , Established Churches; to

the bigotry of Scotch Presbyterians, who were in favour of this Bill. The hon. were opposed to prelacy; and to the Member for Carrickfergus (Mr. Dalway) bigotry of the Irish Roman Catholics, had shown that he was a hearty supwho were opposed to Protestantism. porter of the Protestant institutions of The Liberal Press, Gallio like, “cared the country. They were told in the for none of these things,” but it cared Telegraph that the Tory party had aca great deal for secularizing the institu- cepted the Irish Church Bill in the face tions of the country; and the Liberal of the Amendment placed on the Paper Press had gathered up these elements, by the right. hon. Gentleman the Memthis unholy trinity, and baptized it ber for Buckinghamshire to leave out “ Liberalism." The Liberal Press of the second clause which went to the root this country, he was sorry to say, had of the question of disestablishment. The resorted to the suppressio veri and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the suggestio falsi, and it was by these means Government told them that this Bill that statements had been circulated would show them what metal they were through the country and accepted by made of. It was not difficult to see the country as true which were not what metal the right hon. Gentleman true. Thus, last week, the Pall Mall was made of–he was made of quicksilver, Gazette reported resolutions passed at equally fluent and equally unstable. He a meeting of what purported to be (Mr. Charley) trusted that the Con“the Belfast Presbyterian Association,” stitutional party would be as adamant on warmly extolling Mr. Gladstone's policy the question of disestablishment. They —the fact being that the Resolutions were told that this question had been were passed at a meeting not of an as- argued out; but he had not heard anysociation representing the Presbyterians thing whatever in the nature of an arguof Belfast, but a knot of noisy agitators ment from the other side—nothing but called “the Belfast Liberal Presbyterian taunts against the Conservatives that Association,” some of the members of they had no policy for Ireland, and stale which were so fanatical as to object to quotations from former speeches of the the compensation of vested interests. right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. A clear case of the suppressio veri, on the All the arguments had come from his strength of which the Echo this week side of the House, except the speech of represented the Presbyterians of Belfast the hon. and learned Member for Rich

warm supporters of Mr. Gladstone." mond (Sir Roundell Palmer), and that, He knew something of the Presbyterian The Times had declared, remained unfeelings of the Presbyterians of Ulster. answered from the Ministerial Bench. He had been brought up amongst them. How did The Times answer it? On the The hon. and gallant Member for Dun- 23rd of March The Times saidgannon (Colonel Stuart Knox) had to

“Mr. Gladstone touched, but wholly failed thank the moderator of the Irish General to meet, the argument of prescription. It is imAssembly for standing by his side when possible to plead the principle of prescription in he canvassed the constituency, and Newry only Court open to Catholic claimants is Parlia

favour of the Protestant Establishment. The and Derry would not have returned Li- ment,

and that was not open to them before 1829. beral Members if the elections had de- add to this that they have never acquiesced in the pended on the Presbyterian electors. Protestant occupation of the religious endowments The hon. Member for Newry had polled of the island, and the conclusion is inevitable that, only thirty Presbyterian votes. The

if the principle that tithes are local endowments hon. and learned Member for Derry their use cannot be evaded. This is sufficient to

be true, the moral right of the Catholic Church to (Mr. Serjeant Dowse) made a great pa- displace all title on the part of the Protestant rade the other night about his being an Establishment." Irish Episcopalian, but only thirteen But would not that argument apply with Episcopalians voted for him, whilst of equal force to England; and were Engthe Presbyterian electors only 177 voted lishmen prepared to admit that the for the learned Serjeant and 280 for Roman Catholic Church was entitled to Lord Claud John Hamilton. And in the endowments of the Church of EngBelfast the junior Member owed his land ? It was argued that no preelection entirely to the split in the Con- scription ought to be allowed to the servative camp. ["Question !”] He Protestant Church in Ireland; but a few

“ was speaking to the question — namely, years ago the right hon. Gentleman, in whether the Presbyterians of Ulster company with the late Sir Robert Peel, VOL. CXCV. (THIRD SERIES.]

2 G

[Committee.

as"

Lord Lyndhurst, and Sir William Follett, ling among the trees, the church with earned the thanks of the Unitarian body its taper spire pointing to Heaven, and for having passed a law by which the the clergyman armed with the sword of prescription of twenty-five years gave the Spirit, and weapons tempered in the them a right to their chapels against all armoury of Heaven. This was not a claimants. As to the taunt about the question between the right hon. GentleConservatives having no policy with re- man and the Leaders of the Opposition spect to Ireland, admitting, for the sake merely, it was a question between him of argument only, that the

Conservatives and the great constituencies, such as Lanhave no policy with respect to Ireland, cashire, and he thought the Prime Miniswas it right or just to punish the Protes- ter who could neglect such constituencies, tants of Ireland for the shortcomings of and ride over them rough-shod with a the Conservatives ? As to the stale tyrant majority, was hardly competent quotations from the speeches of the to undertake the delicate task of legisright hon. Member for Buckingham- lating for the Church. He had no doubt shire, these might be more than matched that the verdict, if not of this House, at with former speeches of the First Minis- least the verdict of another House, would ter of the Crown, who declared that the be that of the great and bold Barons, Protestants of Ireland formed the most when it was proposed to them by the natural bond of union between the two Prelates of the Church of Rome to alter countries. The party opposite had de- the fundamental laws of the realmserted the policy of the great Whig “ Nolumus leges Anglia mutari."

” statesmen of 1688—the policy of Somers MR. DEASE said, he felt bound to and Halifax-who were content to rest inform the hon. Member for North Wara new dynasty on the victories of Irish wickshire (Mr. Newdegate), that the Protestants. The right hon. Gentleman Roman Catholic Members of that House wished to efface the memory of those were not to be dictated to in the pervictories and Protestant ascendancy, but formance of their duties by any authority he could not efface them without at the whatever but their own consciences and same time effacing the title of the House their sense of right. He had spent many of Brunswick to the Throne. What, he years on the shores of the Mediterranean, asked, would be the position of the small and of all countries in Europe the least Protestant bodies in the West and South priest-ridden were those which professed of Ireland if this Bill should pass into a the Roman Catholic religion. In Italy, law, which God forbid? They were Spain, France, and Austria, the people exposed to many temptations to change were warmly–he might say intenselytheir faith; they were breathing a Roman attached to their religion; but in the Catholic atmosphere; their children at- performance of public duty they had tended schools of which the Roman Ca- come into collision with the ecclesiastical tholic priests were patrons, and these authorities of those countries, and had priests were ever whispering in the ear carried their point, still remaining deof the Roman Catholic wife and mother votedly attached to the Roman Catholic that she ought to bring up the children religion. He would make one observain the Roman Catholic faith. Had it tion more. It had been asserted that not been for the parochial system and the Prime Minister had brought forward the watchful care of the Protestant this Bill for the purpose of creating poclergy, the Protestants of the South and litical capital for himself. Now, no one West would long ago have been absorbed could have studied the history of Enginto the Church of Rome. The priests land's greatness without observing how would be able to do what they liked many opportunities of settling this quesif the eye of public opinion was not tion English statesmen had thrown away. on them, and public opinion would be At the time of the Union it might have withdrawn if the Protestant ministers been settled with ease, and Ireland would were withdrawn. It was supposed by have been made prosperous and content. some that the police and the military But Pitt was in advance of his age-hemas would be able to hold Ireland; but out-voted—the opportunity was lost, and trust who would in the bayonet of there followed twenty-seven miserable the soldier and the truncheon of the years of ascendancy. In 1829, the question policeman, give him the peaceful influ- might again have been settled, though not ence of the quiet parsonage house nest- so satisfactorily, but again the opportunity