of Scotland. In that country the dogged spirit of presbyterianism had enabled the people to withstand all the attempts of the Stuarts to establish episcopacy. Since then it had been the policy of every administration to conciliate the affections of that country, and in the present session the King's speech recommended the parlia ment to consider by what means the benefits of the Scotch church might be more extensively diffused among the poorer classes of the population. It was in consequence of the people of Scotland being attached to their establishedchurch, that their country presented a spectacle of peace and industry, constituting her a great source of moral and physical strength to the empire. Principles altogether different had been applied to Ireland, and all the world knew the consequence. The established church had been becoming more and more odious; the Roman Catholic clergy had gone on, always thriving best under persecution; while there had been implanted in the breasts of the illeducated peasantry of Ireland a hatred to the English government and legislature much more intense than gentlemen opposite were inclined to believe. The question of appropriation was the true cause of all this. Two facts prove that it was so. An act had been passed in the reign of George IV., which relieved, under certain regulations, the poorer classes of Roman Catholics from the payment of tithe; yet from that time to the present the collection of tithe continued to be resisted. It might be said, that if a compulsory measure of tithe composition had passed, this resistance would have diminished;

but the fact was, that the fiercest disputes occurred in those parishes where the composition was effected. Again, the county cess in Ireland was far more onerous and unequal than tithe, and, like the tithe, it was levied from the poorer classes of the occupying tenantry; but a general resistance to that impost was never sanctioned by public opinion among the poorer classes of Ireland. The question, then, of appropriation was at the bottom of the opposition which was shown to the payment of tithe; and the statements which all persons connected with the Irish government had been compelled to make, year after year, regarding the state of the country, were just so many proofs and acknowledgments that to enforce the Reformation in Ireland was impracticable.

Mr. Littleton's successor, sir Henry Hardinge, after remarking that the alarm, which the resolution itself was calculated to excite, must be greatly increased by the spirit in which it had been supported by his predecessor, whose principles went, not merely to appropriation of a surplus, but to the entire destruction of the established church in Ireland, combated the statements of Mr. Littleton regarding the revenues of the Irish church. He spoke, he said, from documents furnished by the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Dublin, and which would have been presented to the House before this time, if the whole of the necessary calculations had been completed. From these it appeared that the revenue, four years ago, would not have amounted to quite 730,000l. Their value, however, must be taken, not as it might have been four years ago, but as it would be under the operation

of the Temporalities Act, and of a commutation act; for all the proposed measures of commutation had involved a reduction in the amount of tithe. Looking, then, at the reductions now in progress, and those which would be made, if any tithe bill should pass the legislature, he found that a diminution in church revenue had been effected by the provision in the Church Temporalities' Bill, suppressing the bishoprics of 59.000l. a-year. The future tax on the clergy amounted to 22,000l. Then there was the proposed per centage of 25 per cent., or onefourth of the revenue, which equalled 136,000l.; the sinecures of various descriptions to be transferred to the ecclesiastical commissioners amounted to 22,000l.; and the loss by re-investment after redemption, which it was only fair to take into consideration, together with the expenses of law proceedings, collection, &c., could not be calculated at less than 10 per cent., and would amount to 54,500l. The whole of these items constituted a sum of 293,500l. He begged to assure the House that there was no inaccuracy in these details. Now, deducting the sum of 293,500l. from 727,000l., the amount of the revenues of the Irish church four years ago, the sum remaining would be 434,500l., which, he maintained, would be the whole annual amount of the revenue of the church of Ireland, when those acts to which he had alluded should have had their effect, giving credit for the sum of 63,000l. on account of glebe lands.

Sir Henry Hardinge likewise combatted the opinions of Dr. Lushington and Mr. Littleton,

that the existence of the Protestant church as a compulsory establishment, disliked by the great majority of the people, or the want of a different appropriation of its revenues, were the cause of the disturbances in Ireland. The same description of violence which existed now, had existed in the reign of Henry VIII. when there was only one religion in the island. No man could say that the disturbances between 1792, and 1798 had been produced by tithes, or religious differences. The disturbances of that period did not originate with the Roman Catholics, but with the Presbyterians in the north of Ireland, who were the first to commence an attempt at revolution. It was clear from the testimony even of Mr. Wolfe Tone and lord Edward Fitzgerald, that it was not the collection of tithes nor religious grievances— that it was an attempt to convert Ireland into a republic, and not religious differences, which were then the cause of the disturbances in that country. From 1799 to 1813 was a period of war; there were in that period no disturbances in Ireland. Rents were high, and produce bore a high price, and the people were comparatively happy. During the years 1823 and 1824, there were disturbances; and the evidence taken before the Lords showed the probable causes of them. And what were the causes assigned by almost all the witnesses?-not tithes-not religious differences-but the poverty of the population, the subletting of farms, and the want of employment. He would only read the answers given by judge Day on this point. "Have the actual disturbances in Ireland originated in religious. differences, or in what other

causes? The recent disturbances in Ireland have not had anything to do with religion. In what causes did they originate, in your opinion? The poverty of the people, which exposes them to the seduction of every felonious or turbulent leader; the want of employment; the absence and non-residence of landlords, who might superintend, control, and advise." He went on-"Those outrages have been inflicted indifferently, and with perfect impartiality. It appeared to me, that the disturbances did not point at, or mix themselves with religion. They were excited by designing desperate fellows, who looked for insurrection and a scramble, and it cannot be very difficult to recruit persons from such a peasantry, to fall in with such leaders. It was property and plunder they wanted; religion was totally out of the case. I recollect perfectly a Catholic gentleman's habitation as violently assaulted, and himself as obnoxious an object to those insurgents as any Protestant could be." He had called for returns of the population, and of the number of outrages in the four southern and four northern counties. He found that in the four southern

or Catholic counties of Tipperary, Queen's County, Kilkenny and Limerick, the population was 990,000; the population of four northern Protestant counties, was 896,000; the number of outrages in the year 1832, in the four southern counties was 1795, and the number in the four northern counties was only 184. In the three years, in the four southern counties, the number of homicides was 219; in the four northern counties 36. The acts of firing at the person in the four southern counties were 177; in the four northern counties, 30. In proportion to population, in 1832, there had been nine outrages in the south to one in the north; in 1833, seven in the south to one in the north; and in 1834, two in the south to one in the north. He made these observations to prove that, according to his view of the subject, although the question of tithes had been agitated during the last three years, that did not seem to be an element of the disturbances; the greatest proportion of crime arose from other causes-the poverty of the people, and the want of employment.

MR.

R. SPRING RICE, who argued at great length in support of the resolution, seemed to found his reasoning on the numerical strength of the opposition, when he set out with stating that no tithe bill either could or would pass the House, till the question of appropriation was settledthus declaring that, however just and politic might be the provisions of a tithe bill, and however great the relief which it might afford, he and his friends would not allow that relief to be afforded, nor these means of tranquillity to be adopted, unless they were accompanied by the enunciation of a principle, as to which it did not yet appear that it would ever be capable of being applied to any practical purpose. He complained, like wise, somewhat to the merriment of the House, of the inconvenience of having to argue the question without any report from the commissioners; and, in the absence

of such report, he proceeded on the authority of a private return, regarding thirty or forty parishes in his own neighbourhood in Ireland. In the first six of those parishes there were, he said, 5,330 Catholics, varying from 495 to 1,500 in each, and not a single Protestant. In another there were 851 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the next 1,371 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the third 1,444 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the next, 1,449 Catholics, and 21 Protestants: in the next, 3,450 Catholics, and 15 Protestants in the next 367 Catholics, and 11 Protestants. Another parish contained 1,842 Catholics,and 27 Protestants. The next 4,393 Catholics, and 27 Protestants. In the next there were 5,335 catholics, and 12 protestants. Thus in several of these parishes there was no Protestant at all, while in the others the disproportion between the Catholics and Protestants