purpose of conciliating the House of Lords, ministers had not consulted either the tone of public feeling or the dignity of that House. When the wishes and inclinations of the people of England upon this question had been so backed by the deliberate judgment of their representatives, there should be no power in the state to stand against them, and permanently there never could. Was it to be expected that the members of that House should sit down contented and have all their great measures of reform thrown out by the lords; that they should reform their own House, and not ere long set about reforming the other House of Parliament? If the bill were to pass mangled and mutilated as it was at present, it would be the means of raising a cry for a much more extensive reform than ever this bill had contemplated. The other House of Parliament ought to take a warning from the signs of the times, and not refuse the redresses that were required. Why, said Mr. Roebuck, member for Bath, why should the real representa tives of the people bear the insults of so weak a body, when they had the power to crush them? That House had thrown out all the important measures which the representatives of the people had passed; and how much longer would they be required to go on with concessions? Having reformed themselves, was there no other body that required the excision of the knife? He was an advocate to the utmost for democracy, and the sooner they brought the matter to an under. standing the better. He knew there were some few persons in that House, pretending to represent the people, who had a con

tempt for democracy; but, in his opinion, what the people desired ought to be law, and no body ought for a day to stand, or could much longer stand, between the people and their wishes. The interests of the lords being only to maintain the supremacy of irresponsible power, were wholly incompatible with those of the people. Why should such a body, with circumstances, interests, and feelings entirely opposed to popular desires, any longer have the power of controlling the decisions of that House? It was childish and imbecile to talk of conciliation and concession in such a case. He was one of those who felt it necessary to stir up the people upon this subject to something almost like a revolution. Mr. O'Connell said, the collision, which had been so much dreaded, was begun, and he rejoiced it had originated with those who, pretending to be the friends of the poor, were the friends only of the very rich who could afford to bribe the poor. It might be very well for the House of Commons to consider if they were not going too far in the contemplated concessions; but it would, likewise, behove others, whose days, at least whose years were numbered, to reflect if they were not going too far. It was childish to suppose that the people of England would tamely submit to the domination of two hundred individuals.

The conservative party, likewise, were not altogether united; some of them thinking that the amendments of the lords should be maintained in all their integrity, while others were not adverse to admitting the modifications proposed by ministers. Sir Robert Peel said, that there certainly was

nothing in these propositions to prevent the House of Lords from taking them into consideration, and in some of them he was himself prepared to concur. He did not think it was an improvement of this bill to introduce aldermen for life. If that proposal had been made in the House of Commons, strong as his objections were to many parts of the bill, he did not think he could have given his support to it. The selection of a certain number of the existing aldermen to be elected by the existing councillors in certain cases, and constituting them by law a part of the new councillors to the amount of a-fourth, implied distrust, but did not afford that security which the proposers of it contemplated, as the minority would not be sufficient to countervail the actions of the majority. Placing the aldermen selected by the existing councillors in office for life by the act of the Legislature would not be in conformity with the principle or general provisions of the bill. Ministers did not propose to do away with the amendment altogether, but to put the aldermen in office for six years, and that was an amendment which he could not dissent from, and to which he thought the lords ought to agree. He thought that the lords, in making the townclerks irremoveable, and giving to the Crown the whole power of appointing justices, instead of naming them from a list sent up by the town-council, had made bona fide improvements on the bill which ought to be retained; on the other hand, he would not object to the proposal that the decision of the revising barristers in dividing towns into wards should not be final till approved

of by the privy council. The qualification of one-sixth of the highest rate-payers-dividing the whole number into six, and then taking one-sixth of the highest

was a qualification to which, if it had stood, great objections would have existed; but still if the onesixth should be retained with the qualification of the 1,000l. and the 500l. on the principle proposed, without requiring an examination to take place before the revising barristers into the pecuniary affairs of individuals, or introducing an inquisitorial investigation into the state of their property, he should not object to it. Sooner than submit to an inquisitorial proceeding of that sort he believed many persons would prefer not to be elected at all. Some solemn declaration might be required to be made by those elected in order to ascertain the qualification. He could not agree, however, with ministers in the view which they took of the limitation of the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage to members of the church of England. He thought that the House of Lords was perfectly right in saying that they would make no distinction in point of religion where civil duty, secular office, or the right of trading, was concerned; but that where the question was of the qualification of a minister of the church of England, they should leave that question to those who belonged to the church of England. He could not see that there was the slightest reflection thrown upon dissenters by the legislature saying they should disqualify them from judging of the qualifications of a minister of the church of England. He had raised that objection on the first night on which this question was

debated in that House, and so strongly was the propriety of the objection felt by the member for Dublin, that he stated he thought it so rational that he would not object to some amendment, which would have the effect of reserving the right of appointment to the members of the church of England. It was not to be supposed by the dissenters that by this clause any reflection was intended to be cast upon them. If the proposal was, that endowed dissenting chapels should have their ministers elected by members of the church of England, not only would they disclaim such a principle, but they would be first instantly to remonstrate against it. Upon these grounds he must support the amendment of the House of Lords, which he thought perfectly reconcileable with the true principles of toleration, justice, and good sense.

Ministers rejected that part of the qualification which consisted in being included in the sixth part of the inhabitants who paid most rates. They retained the other branch of the qualification, which consisted in the possession of property real or personal to the extent of 1,000l. in the larger towns, and 500l. in the smaller. Sir Robert Peel proposed an additional and alternative qualification, viz., the being rated in 30l. in the larger boroughs, or in 15. in the smaller. Ministers acceded to this; but some of their adherents, displeased at being compelled to adopt the principle of any qualification at all, divided on an amendment to reduce the amount

of rating to 10l. in all towns. They only mustered 36 votes against 273. More difficulty was encountered in dealing with the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage. Lord John Russell's proposal was, entirely to reject the amendment of the lords, and return to the original provision of the bill, although he was not prepared to say in the abstract that dissenters were the fittest persons to present to vacant benefices in the establishment from which they dissented. Mr. Spring Rice proposed an expedient, which was ultimately adopted, to insert a clause directing the ecclesiastical patronage belonging to boroughs to be sold, and the price to be invested for the purpose of being applied to the public good of the boroughs. The Commons did not attempt to restore the clause which gave to the town-councils the power of granting licences.

The amendments of the Commons were taken into consideration by the lords on the 4th of September, and were agreed to with a few exceptions. The peers still retained, however, their original amendments, providing that justices should be named directly by the Crown, and not selected from lists sent up by the towncouncils, and that the division into wards should begin with boroughs containing a population of 6,000, instead of 9,000. The Commons, on the 7th of September, agreed to the bill as it had been returned to them from the Lords; and in that shape it was finally passed.

-

HILE the House of Lords

W were dealing with the

municipal bill, the Commons were occupied with the Irish church bill, the other leading measure to which ministers had limited themselves for the session. In so far as regarded the arrangement of tithe, it did not differ much from what had been proposed by Sir Robert Peel's government; but, as a consequence of the resolution by which that government had been unseated, it contained a new set of provisions for appropriating the surplus revenue, which had not yet formed part of any tithe bill. Lord Morpeth opened the measure on the 26th of June. He stated, that, in conformity with the bill of last year, and of that which the late government intended to have introduced this session, he proposed to convert the existing composition into an annual rent charge, payable by the owners of the first estate of inheritance, or such other equivalent estate as would be accurately defined by the bill, equal to seven-tenths of the amount of composition, or 70l. for every 100l., charging the cost of collection on the tithe owners, because they VOL. LXXVII.

the

would be relieved from all risk and trouble. This charge would be 6d. in the pound, which would leave the sum of 681. 5s. as the net income derivable from every 100l. of composition. He had considered it advisable to make a distinction, not only between existing and future clerical incumbents, but also between clergymen and lay impropriators, inasmuch as latter had no duties to perform, and had generally other sources of income, and therefore he proposed that the existing clerical incumbent should receive 73l. 8s. for every 100l. of composition. The additional five per cent, in this case, would be charged upon the perpetuity purchase fund. This charge would be temporary, and not perpetual, as was proposed by the bill of last year. The machinery of the bill which he proposed to introduce, was so similar to the bill of last year, that he did not feel called on to enter into any of the details respecting the real charges payable to the Crown, and the investments, which would be placed under the management of the commissioners of land revenue. The bill would authorise

[U]

a revision and revaluation, under certain cases, of benefices for the tithe composition. It was likewise proposed to extend the provisions of lord Tenterden's act for the limitation of suits to Ireland, in the same way as it was included in the bill of last year. A clause would be introduced into the bill, remitting all advances made to tithe owners from the million granted by parliament for the arrears of 1831, 1832, 1833. As to the arrears of 1834, he found that in many parts of Ireland, especially the north, the Protestant parts, several landlords, under the provisions of lord Stanley's act, had taken upon themselves to pay the clergy their amount of composition, subject to a bonus of fifteen per cent. About 102,000l. of composition had thus voluntarily been undertaken for by the landlords. He proposed to keep those landlords to the observance of the liability which they had voluntarily contracted. He wished in all cases, retrospective as well as prospective, to exempt the occupying tenant from the payment of tithe, but he proposed to enable the privy council to recover the arrears of 1834, subject to a deduction of twenty-five per cent from those landlords who had a permanent interest in the land, on whom the liability had already by law devolved. In proceeding to explain the more important part of the measure, which regarded the future prospects of the church, his lordship observed, that the House had to deal with a state of things which, in the present condition of public opinion, would have precluded every sane man from endeavouring to found in Ireland-if all things were to be begun afresh in that country -a Protestant Episcopal church.

But finding that church there with all its long prescription, and interwoven as it was with so much of the civil polity of our country, they were not prepared either to uproot its foundations or disturb its frame-work. Yet he felt sure that parliament must consent to its modification, if they meant that any human power should preserve it. It was necessary to fix some point, below which the presentation to a vacant benefice should be suspended. If that was not done, nothing would be done, and parliament must still be prepared to keep up livings without duties, clergy without flocks, and pay without work-in short, all the worst gains of the sinecurists on the worst principles of the bigot. By the report of the commissioners of public instruction, who had prepared a census of the population of Ireland, specifying the proportion of the different religious sects, the members of the established church amounted to 853,064, the Presbyterians to 642,356, and the other Dissenters to 21,808 persons. The number of the Roman Catholics was 6,427,712-in other words, the members of the established church amounted to 853,064 persons, and the number of those who dissented was 7,091,876. The distribution of the members of the established church was almost as disproportionate as their total amount. In the diocese of Dromore there were 264 members of the established church for every 1,000 acres; in the diocese of Tuam, only eight to every 1,000 acres; in the diocese of Clogher there were twenty-six to every 1,000 acres ; while in another diocese there was less than one. It was proposed, therefore, to suspend the presentation or appointment to