things, in fact, remained in their former position, with the exception that government had committed a robbery on what had been held, and ought to be held, inviolable. Believing that the government was committing injustice, and yet would fail in its end-that the country was against this injustice-and that Ireland, after it had been perpetrated, would not be more tranquil than she was at present-he would take the sense of the committee on the resolution now proposed. Lord Althorp, who, with the rest of the ministers, seemed to consider this truculent attack from one who so shortly before had been their most redoubtable champion as "the unkindest cut of all," admitted that Mr. Stanley had justified his anticipations that his genius would have fair play, whenever he became an opposition orator; and that he would make a first-rate opposition speech, in which "timidity," "imbecility," "spoliation," and "robbery" would be among the mildest terms employed. Nevertheless, he did not see how it could be spoliation to take property, not from a corporation, but from a mass of different corporations, and apply it to other purposes, if, in doing this, he was giving security to the church. Neither was it fair to say, with the view of imputing blame to the government, that it was now departing from the principles of former measures. These measures, suggested by the late colonial secretary himself, when Irish secretary, had no doubt been wise measures, and would have served their purpose, if they had been adopted several years ago. But having come too late, they had not been successful; and as Ireland, instead of being con tented, was as far removed as ever from tranquillity, it was not just in Mr. Stanley to object to measures of pacification proposed by the cabinet, because they were different from his own. He, lord Althorp, did consider the perpetuity fund to be in some respects different from the remaining portion of the property of the church-different, indeed, not in the sense in which those who brought forward the 147th clause of the act of last session considered it, but as a fund which was new. He did not deny, that the charge which might fall on the consolidated fund was a serious question for the house; but if the imposition of this charge relieved the peasantry from a vexatious impost, and all its miserable consequences, by inducing or compelling the landlords to take the payment of a diminished tithe upon themselves, it would be money well laid out, and would afford a far better chance of restoring tranquillity, than any other measure that could be taken. Mr. Hume confessed that he found himself very uncomfortably situated-for he would be sorry to vote with Mr. Stanley, in all whose sentiments he could not concur, and yet felt that he could go with him more easily than with ministers, who were ruining their own game by yielding to intimidation; and who "would be loaded like asses, and compelled to bear the burthen, so long as they were pusillanimously subservient." He believed in his conscience that they were afraid of their late colleague, and he did not wonder at it. He would, therefore, move an amendment, the effect of which would be to re-enact the 147th clause of the act of last session, by substituting for the original reso lution the following: "That the surplus monies to the credit of the ecclesiastical commissioners in the perpetuity purchase fund, to be kept by the said ecclesiastical commissioners pursuant to an act of last session of parliament, should be applicable to such purposes, for the adjustment and settlement of tithes in Ireland, as by an act of parliament of this session should be provided." Ministers should either agree that church property was not to be touched at all, or at once manfully declare that it was to be freely dealt with. It was a monstrous proposition, considering that the church of Ireland was assuredly rich enough for its own support, that the country should be called on to make good a deficit which would require a capital of two millions. The course, which government was pursuing, held out to the people of England a premium on the refusal to pay tithes. Mr. O'Connell admitted, that government was right in departing from the principles of former measures, which, however well intended, had been utterly unsuccessful; but then why did it not come forward manfully, and alter its policy in such a manner as would render Ireland tranquil and grateful? It had been established clearly enough that great alterations had been made in the bill, but not that they were favourable to Ireland. When ministers did struggle to amend the measure, why did they not take their proper position at once, bring in their own bill, and satisfy the people of Ireland of their desire and their determination to do them justice. Feeling and knowing, as they must, the truths he had asserted, why did not the government come boldly forward and say, "we will deal with church property?" But no-that would be spoliation, that would be robbery. It was ridicu lous to talk of spoliation. What was the title of the established church to the property it held?-a most excellent title undoubtedlythe authority of an act of parliament. And yet this was originally an act of spoliation. If they were to trace the titles by which church property in parishes was held-if they were to examine into the grants made by the ancient barons, they would see that they were given in consideration of certain services to be rendered to the donor, at least to the soul of the donor. Masses were to be said for the repose of his soul; but now no masses were said, the conditions of the bequest were not fulfilled, the stipulated services were not rendered. Now, here was the real thimble-rig. In Ireland, however, it was that the thimble-rig had been played in its perfection, for the most decided exploit of this kind was that which transferred the reward from the clergy of the many to the clergy of the few. This had likewise occurred in Scotland; but there the government had been compelled to give way. For fifty years the Scotch used their swords. What was the result? Not that the ecclesiastical revenues were given either to episcopacy, the church of the government, or to the Catholic church, though the more ancient, but to a new church which the people had raised for themselves; and since that time Scotland had added strength and dignity to the empire, instead of being a perennial source of weakness and alarm. If the government wanted to make peace with the people of Ireland, let them leave the latter to manage the matter as they best might between themselves and the landlords. They desired no rambling commissions. Let government simply declare that no Protestant clergyman should be maintained as at present, unless in parishes where one-fourth of the population was of that persuasion. Let the reve nues of all parishes fall in as the clergyman died or was promoted, where one-fourth of the inhabitants were not Protestant, and they would soon have a fund to draw upon. Meanwhile, let them issue exchequer bills to make up any deficiency which might occur. There would be ample provision to meet those bills. The house would be ready to support such a plan, and if ministers, in the prosecution of it, should meet with obstacles elsewhere, the people would support them. Mr. Lefroy had given a willing assent to the bill as originally explained, although it diminished the property of the church, because it provided for the removal of the charge by allowing tithes to be redeemed and converted into land, the only mode of establishing peace in Ireland, and the one recommended by committees of both houses of parliament; but to what the bill was now to be he was decidedly opposed, because it would unsettle everything without giving satisfaction to any party.-Mr. F. Shaw said, he must follow the same course, and he characterized the conduct of ministers as paltry shuffling to catch votes. It was for this they were incessantly making declarations of their readiness to enter on the question of appropriation, and yet always evading it. They were sure of a majority, if they brought forward the question of appropriation; they did not venture to do it, because it would be disadvantageous to them as a cabinet elsewhere; and yet they made speeches night after night to entrap votes, while they themselves voted against motions which ought to have been only the necessary results of those speeches. After abandoning, in the power of redemption, their own principle and the very essence of the bill, they had not the manliness to go forward, but now applied to the English and Scotch members to rescue them, by a grant of money, from difficulties created solely by their own shuffling and truckling conduct. On the other hand, Mr. Lambert, who had approved of the bill when it was first introduced, and who had afterwards declared that he would give it his most strenuous opposition, now stated that he would support it, since he had seen Mr. Stanley taking the same ground with Mr. O'Connell, and then making common cause with a party whom he himself had formerly designated as the contemptible remnant of an expiring faction. Mr. Gisborne admitted that the redemption principle had been a very valuable part of the bill, and he hoped that, although postponed, it would not be done away; but he did not see the same necessity for investing so large a sum of money in land, while there were other securities, such as the funds. They should address his majesty never to create another Irish bishop, and to withdraw a regiment on the death of every bishop, and a battalion on the death of every dean, thus equalizing the reduction of the ecclesiastical and military establishments, and rendering the government of Ireland much more easy. He wished the amendment to be withdrawn, in order that support might be given to the present government, although they might not go so fast as some desired, under the same reservation which he himself made as to their future intentions. - Mr. Sheil, however, maintained it was idle to talk of purposes, inclinations, and future intentions. He would not use entreaty with government. Their antagonists had applied something much stronger than entreaty. If any thing could stimulate their lagging pace, it was the taunts, amounting almost to contumely, which they had been compelled to hear from their avowed enemies, and from those who still affected to be their friends. Would ministers give up "ecclesiastical purposes," or were they still adhering to the principle on which they had sacrificed the 147th clause of the bill of last session–a clause which left it in the power of parliament to apply the surplus fund to any purposes whatever? Sir Robert Peel said, the resolution proposed to the house embodied two principles. The first was, that the public should contribute a certain sum to make up the deficiency which would arise in the contributions of the Irish landed proprietors. There was to be an absolute charge on the public purse, for which there was no prospect of any remuneration, to the amount of 60,000l.; and to that he most distinctly objected. Another principle involved in the resolution was, that, by way of providing a partial compensation to the public revenues for the amount to be contributed, the fund set apart by a solemn act of the legislature last session of parlia ment, on the faith of which their assent had been called for to most extensive changes in the Irish. church, should be diverted, and that the bill passed in 1833 should be violated in 1884, thus tending to shake all confidence in the decisions of his majesty's government and of the legislature. To all this he further objected, because it rendered the matter open to much greater objection than the very same measure brought in by government in February last. Their rallying cry last year had been the extinction of tithes; and they began this session by introducing a measure which contemplated their extinction by means of redemption. But they now departed from that principle, and were going to make tithe a permanent charge in Ireland under the name of a rent. What was the distinction ? They had borrowed the plan of the member for the city of Dublin ; and having stolen his child, like other plagiarists, as Sheridan said, they attempted so to disfigure it as to make it impossible for the learned gentleman himself to recognize his own production. And how well they had succeeded! They had been licking, and hacking, and cutting the unfortunate bantling which had been produced only a few weeks since, so that in point of fact Mr. O'Connell could not be made to own it. But the chancellor of the exchequer said, "pay this out of the consolidated fund, and do not refuse to provide future peace and tranquillity for Ireland by refusing the paltry sum of 60,000l. What shadow of argument had he brought forward, that, if he fastened a permanent rentcharge on Ireland, which the landlord was to pay, there would, as the necessary consequence, be permanent peace and satisfaction there. Of all vulgar arts of government, that of solving every difficulty which might arise by thrusting the hand into the public purse was the most delusory and contemptible. It had in all times been considered the symptom of decay in government, when they had neither the manliness to enforce the law, nor the courage to stand on ancient rights. One year they proposed 60,000l., another 1,000,000l., and a third 59,000l., and their language was, "advance us this for the sake of peace but they called "peace, peace, when there was no peace. To consent to redemption could alone give a chance of peace. Sir Robert then proceeded to show that all evidence, as well as reason, was in favour of redemption. He would not give them the evidence of tories or high churchmen; but the testimony of archbishop Whately, their peculiar confidant, a member of the poorlaw commission, and of the ecclesiastical commission, if not also a member of the new Irish church commission: he must be a high authority on the subject of redemption; and was the lord-lieutenant of Ireland nothing? The evidence of lord Wellesley and of Mr. Blake, the Roman Catholic, and of lord Lansdowne, was decidedly in favour of redemption as compared with a rent-charge. All argument, too, showed that this was the only way securely to effect the ultimate extinction of tithes. But while the bill of February last facilitated that object, the present bill postponed the matter indefinitely, and went, indeed, directly against it. The question was not whether it should be vested in land; they might sanction redemption without applying it to that purpose. Land was no doubt preferable as an investment, because it gave additional security; but it did not necessarily follow that the investment in land would conclude for ever the question of the church revenues. They had moved resolutions to the effect that, to whomsoever church property belonged, and whatever control the legislature might have over it, at all events the landed proprietor had no right to it; they had claimed for parliament the power to make a new appropriation, but had admitted, at the same time, that the landlord must continue to pay the full amount. On what principle was it then, that now forty per cent was to be given up to him. In the present state of tithe, it was possible to take one of these steps. The first was, to contend for the perfect inviolability of church property, the state if it pleased adopting, possibly, a different distribution of it-which was the course he was prepared to recommend. The second course was to hold that the establishment was too amply provided for, and that, therefore, a different appropriation of its revenues should be recognized, which was the course of the mover of the amendments; and the third course was, that of those who said, "we are not prepared to affirm either the inviolability of church property, or our right to interfere with it." Ministers had taken the last of these courses; till a commission had made a report, not a word was to be whispered regarding the purposes to which church property should be applied. The chancellor of the exchequer, who, not three nights ago, was for limit |