modation for the Houses of Parliament appeared to be most enormous. He found that one of the charges was "for the probable expense that will be incurred for taking up haircloth, mats, &c., and cleaning dirt from under the House, which will be required from time to time to make good what is worn out, 1,150l.;" and this, with the hire of chandeliers for the temporary residence of the Speaker, amounted to 1,4107. Then, again, the Government were taking into their occupation large houses in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament. Such was the case with Gwydyr House, and several other mansions formerly occupied by noblemen. No adequate advantage to the public was derived from the occupation of such places. The whole matter involved a series of expenditure which might be checked without the slightest injury to the public service.

VISCOUNT MORPETH agreed in the report of the Select Committee, that all the particular buildings which were the subject of this vote should be enumerated, and that they should put down the specific sum allotted to each of the Royal Palaces, so that the House might know what sums were expended for the comfort and accommodation of Her Majesty, and what for the innocent recreation and enjoyment of Her subjects in those places which were thrown open to the public. With respect to the Pavilion at Brighton, it was not intended to expend upon that building any more than was necessary to keep it tight, and to keep the rain out. It was now cleared of all its furniture, and the Office of Woods and Forests had called for and obtained a report upon the best mode of disposing of the site. It appeared that there was some difficulty in giving a proper title, which might render the intervention of Parliament necessary. An undertaking was on foot to repair the very interesting and beautiful ruin of Lanercost Abbey, in Cumberland, with a view of serving from ultimate ruin and decay this, among other interesting specimens of antiquity in the possession of the Crown. A small sum was therefore voted in aid for the repair of Lanercost Abbey; and it was intended, also, to vote a small sum for Carisbrooke Castle and Caernarvon Castle. With reference to the number of buildings engaged for the accommodation of the different offices and commissions, for which rent was paid, it did amount to a great sum, because the increasing business of the country required an additional number

pre

of buildings devoted to these purposes. It was thought necessary that these offices and houses should be in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament; and the houses in that neighbourhood, as they all knew, fetched a much greater rent than in the remoter parts of the town. A large sum was annually demanded for the expenses of these offices and commissions, and he sometimes felt that the vacant space of ground near the Foreign Office would be well devoted to an edifice capable of accommodating in a simple and substantial manner these various offices and commissions. In the present state of the finances, however, it would not perhaps be advisable to incur the expense of such a building now, whatever the ultimate saving of such an edifice would be. It was not, therefore, thought right to propose a large sum for any building not absolutely required; and it was considered better for the present to go on paying rent for the houses required for offices and commissions.

SIR R. H. INGLIS thought it very desirable that the large and at present unsightly area on the south side of Downingstreet should be appropriated for the erection of a plain, solid, substantial building, for all the commissions appointed, so that it should not be necessary to have recourse to the occupation of houses in Georgestreet, or elsewhere, for them. There ought also to be a building more worthy of the important business transacted in the Foreign and Colonial Offices; it was to be hoped it was not generally known that the Foreign Office of England consisted of five separate private dwelling-houses, in such a ruinous state that the documents of the department had to be removed a floor lower because the weight of them would hazard the stability of the building.

Vote agreed to.

Other votes agreed to. House resumed. Committee to sit again.

House adjourned at Two o'clock.

HOUSE OF LORDS,

Monday, August 14, 1848.

MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1a Fisheries (Ireland); Turnpike Acts Continuance; Poor Law Union District Schools; Money Order Department (Post Office); Borough Incorporation.

2a Parliamentary Electors; Proclamations on Fines (Court of Common Pleas); Churches; Turnpike Roads (Ireland); Constabulary Force (Ireland).

Reported.-Unlawful Oaths Acts (Ireland) (Continuance and Amendment); Reproductive Loan Fund Institution (Ireland); Militia Ballots Suspension.

3a and passed:- Bankrupts' Release; Ecelesiastical Jurisdiction; Loan Societies; Highway Rates.

competition for land on the part of the poor, that temptation to and facility for eviction on the part of the landlord-those prolific sources of crime and misery-that enormous amount of waste and unprofitable land within reach of an idle, teeming, and famishing population-the state of her grand jury laws, by which much of that evil might be remedied-the comparatively neglected condition of mines and fisheries -in fine, every grievance, both social and political, remains almost precisely where it was. We have had, too, the same system of Government prosecutions, quite necessary under the circumstances. I am not complaining of it, I only state it as a fact; but we have had the same system of Government prosecutions backed by the same system of jury packing, quite necessary also, if a conviction were to be expected, and as is again proved by the news of this very morning. Neither do I complain of that; but of this I do complain, that upon all these questions the feelings, and desires, and interests, and opinions of the people, have produced no effect; but one and all they remain almost precisely where they were when they were brought forward by the present Premier and his Colleagues, as so many proofs that in Ireland there was only a government of force; from which no good could come, instead of a government of opinion, from which all might be expected.

The only change the only material change that has taken place, has been by the passing of the new poor-law. That, my Lords, was a well-intentioned and beneficent measure, as were all the temporary measures which accompanied it, which did infinite credit to the Government and the Parliament, and merited a much better return. But the law itself, I think, in many cases inflicts a cruel injustice on the landlords, and a still more cruel injustice on the poor. In many cases, the poorrates absorb, or very nearly absorb, the whole of the rental: can it then be just thus to confiscate any man's property for the fulfilment of an obligation which, under the circumstances - and I do not stand singly in this opinion-ought, I think, to fall on the community in general? for the consequence of the present state of things is, that war is made upon the poor; for either the landlord must be ruined, or the poor must be exterminated.

But, singular inconsistency in a law which professes to be an assimilation to the law of England!-the poor of Ireland

are by law debarred from the enjoyment of the right which is undoubtedly by law conferred upon the poor of England-the right to subsistence. And it is notorious that very many of the poor of Ireland have perished miserably of absolute want; that they still continue so to perish, and with another potato famine staring them in the face. Many too have perished, and still continue to perish, by slow degrees, from insufficiency of food. Why, my Lords, one of the poor creatures killed the other day, near Ballingarry, was an ablebodied man, hired to break stones along the roadside for only one pound of meal per day for himself and his wife! No wonder, then, that he was so readily turned into a rebel. But most of all do they seem to have perished who were so barbarously and inhumanly evicted-evicted under sanction of the law, and often at the point of the bayonet, and driven helpless on a world in which they had no legal right to relief, and in which no preparation had been made to receive them in their distress! My Lords, it is in this state of things, and not in the preaching and teaching of sedition, that the danger lies; because justice has not been done; because those remedial measures recommended by some twenty different Parliamentary Committees, and Royal Commissions; recommended by every statistical and political writer for the last fifty years; many of them solicited, and still solicited by almost every grand jury in Ireland-measures so strenuously insisted on by the noble Lord at the head of the Government on the 13th of February, 1844; so earnestly re-insisted upon on the 15th of June, 1846; and promised-many of them promised-on the 16th of July of the same year; because these remedial measures have never yet been carried into execution, therefore the discontent, therefore the agitation, therefore the rebellion : because of the agitation want of confidence, want of capital, want of employment. In fine, the whole question resolves itself into this, and for this also I have the authority of the Prime Minister of the Crown, that up to this very day the promises and conditions of the Union have never yet been fulfilled, but there still is in Ireland a Government of force instead of a Government of opinion. Hence the disaffection, hence the rebellion.

But, my Lords, there is still another and a master grievance behind, and for this too I have the authority of the noble Lord at the head of the Government-and

more especially, indeed, of the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies-a grievance incomparably greater than the rest, yet far more difficult, for me at least, to approach even in argument.

For, my Lords, I well remember when a noble Friend of mine, not now in his place, a Catholic Member of this House, now holding an honourable situation in Her Majesty's household I well remember when that noble Lord ventured to express it as his opinion, that for the peace and security of the empire there should be a redistribution of the property of the Established Church in Ireland. I well remember with what vehemence a noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham), whom I have not now the pleasure of seeing in his place -though sitting on the same side of the House as my noble Friend, and, as I would fain believe, holding the same opinions with him- I well remember with what vehemence the noble and learned Lord fell upon my noble Friend, and taunted him with the oath he had taken at your Lordships' table. My Lords, I am quite willing to admit that they who impose the oath have a right to its interpretation; but till that interpretation be formally defined in a contrary sense, I contend that we have a right to the largest interpretation it will bear-an interpretation fully recognised by the Lower House-to that in which we take it, namely that it nowise disqualifies us from any act or opinion which any one of your Lordships has a right to do or to hold as a member of the Legislature. Still, to enable us fully and freely to discuss that most vital of all questions, the Irish Church, without let or hindrance, my opinion is that the oath should either be altered or abrogated; so that no one's religious professions should, by any possibility, prove a disqualification to the full and free expression of his senti

ments.

Whilst I am on this point, allow me, my Lords, one word more; for there are others also interested in this matter; and, if report speak truly, we are at this moment deprived of the presence of at least one Irish Peer in consequence, therefore is it especially applicable to this present case. My Lords, there is a portion of the Protestant oath to which Protestants object, and which, I think, ought to be expunged. It is also objectionable to Catholics. The noble Lord below me swears that the Pope neither hath nor ought to have spiritual jurisdiction within these realms. Now, my

Lords, I am quite willing to swear precisely the contrary; I am quite willing to swear the affirmative of the noble Lord's negative; I am quite willing to swear it, not only as an article of faith, but as a matter of fact-as a great, palpable, and notorious fact. Can any thing, then, be more preposterous than to make such a test as this the qualification for the exercise of the same functions?

My Lords, so far from considering these religious differences and distinctions as a benefit either civil or religious, every day's experience convinces me more and more of the fallacy of that notion. My Lords, religion and liberty, in the words of a very celebrated political character of the day, are sisters who ought to live well and happily together, leaning on each other for support. Yes, my Lords, these religious differences and distinctions, and inequalities, are the bane and curse of this empire; they are the primary cause of all the miseries and of all the misgovernment of Ireland, and the sooner we get rid of them the better.

To take but one, but a very remarkable and a very apt illustration-an illustration of a state of things which, if it had not existed, there had been no occasion for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act-I allude to the trial of Mr. Meagher. My Lords, on the jury which tried Mr. Meagher there was but one Catholic; but because he was a member of a religion which for centuries had been persecuted with fire and sword, and which was still degraded and insulted, oppressed and tormented, that one individual rendered your law a nullity; he set the whole power of the Government at defiance, and impeded the whole course of your administrative policy in Ireland. To prevent a similar result in the case of Mitchel, you were compelled to exclude every Catholic from the panel, so that his conviction instead of good only produced evil; it only earned an additional meed of odium to the Government, and of hatred to the antagonistic and ascendant Church. My Lords, you may occupy, but you cannot govern, a country upon such a system.

My Lords, I verily believe there is nothing which has so provoked the cry for repeal in Ireland, and so militated against the social improvement of that country, as the continued refusal to reduce that Church within her fair and legitimate proportions. My Lords, I have no hostility to the Establishment as such-none whatever; but I am bound to regard it as a matter of jus