moved that the House should resolve itself into Committee upon the Irish Tithes Bill.

in rising to move the resolutions of which he had given notice, said he did so with reluctance; but a man who entertained strong feelings on any subject, as he did on this, and had not the courage to express those feelings, had no pretensions to claim a seat in the Legislature; and from the first moment he became aware of the policy which he thought it was the intention of her Majesty's Government to pursue, he intimated to the noble Lord his fixed determination to take the course which he was now about to pursue; and he must say, that he had too strong a sense of his duty, as a Member of this House, and too great a value for its time, to enter into the discussion of a question which it was not his determination to press to a division. He would now come at once to his resolution, the tendency of which was to induce the House to consider the course upon which it was about to enter—a course which he conceived was wholly incompatible with any regard to its consistency and character. Why should they be called upon to abandon a policy which had been proclaimed to be essential during every Session since 1835? As to sinecures and abuses in the Irish Church Establishment, the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) had expressed himself as desirous of reforming them as any hon. Gentleman on his (Mr. Ward's) side of the House. What, then, was the difference which led to the overthrow of the right hon. Baronet's Government? Was it not his opposition to the principle of appropriation? The right hon. Baronet announced his wish to reform all abuses in the Church Establishment in his first tithe speech in 1835; and upon that occasion the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in opposing the bill, said, that, judging from what his own feelings would be if he, a Protestant, were called upon to support a Catholic church in Ireland, he must advocate the principle of appropriation. The right hon. the President of the Board of Control also gave his entire adherence to this principle, and said, on a subsequent occasion, that not even to keep the Ministry in office would he consent to forego the principle of appropriation. In fact, that principle was the mainspring of Lord Melbourne's Government during the whole of the years 1835 and 1836, and he was not aware that there was anything in the present state of Ireland which would prevent the arguments then used being still relied upon. The result of the debate, in which the right hon. Baronet moved that the Tithe Bill should be divided into two bills, was a majority of thirty-seven against the right hon. Baronet. It was to be remembered that the Catholic question, and the Reform Bill, and the Test Act were all carried, although in the first instance they had all been thrown out in the House of Lords. They were eventually successful, because they were persevered in, and he did hope that this question, which had been taken up and made the corner-stone of the new cabinet, would not be thus abandoned; he thought, at all events, that every Member of that cabinet would have adhered to it. In 1836, another Tithe Bill was brought forward, which still preserved the principle of appropriation. It was opposed by the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, who attempted to substitute for it a bill converting tithes into a rent-charge, exactly like the present bill, and proposing to make the duties of the Irish clergy more accord with their respective revenues, and otherwise remedy abuses in the Church. The noble Lord's bill was opposed by Ministers, who appealed to the solemn decision of the House, and as on a former occasion, the Government bill was carried by a majority of thirty-nine, but was subsequently lost in the House of Lords. In 1837, there was no division upon the subject in that House, owing to the demise of the Crown. The question of appropriation became then the subject of discussion upon every hustings in the kingdom. There was not a single constituency in the kingdom to which, in the election of 1837, the liberal candidates did not put forward, as their strongest claim, the superior policy of the present Administration in respect to Ireland; and especially in reference to the appropriation principle. He might be told, that in that election the result was unfavourable to the principle. It was true the majority was diminished, but still there was a majority in favour of the resolution of 1835, and it ought not to be abandoned. On the motion of the hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, brought forward in the present Session, to rescind the resolution, a clear majority of the House had recorded its opinions in favour of the resolution. Why should it now be departed from? He heard his noble Friend, the Secretary for the Home Department make a speech upon that occasion, in which there was the most manifest inconsistency—the first half of it proving the necessity of adhering to the principle of appropriation, and the other half showing the absolute necessity of abandoning it. Such a speech he thought inconsistent with his noble Friend's honour, and he thought it equally inconsistent that the resolution should stand upon the journals of the House if it were not to be carried into effect. There was something in all this which he admitted was too refined for men of ordinary understanding. Now, he should not have cared at all for the debates on the motion of the hon. Member for North Devon, if he thought it was a mere party struggle upon a point of honour, which to him was a matter of the greatest indifference. His motion had been called an unfair motion to his own party and to the noble Lord. He had been told by those who concurred with him in his opinions, that he was putting himself unfairly forward at the expense of those who sincerely wished to act with him, and that it would be gross injustice in him to wish to press his motion to a division. Those who held this language had, in his opinion, very lax ideas of the principles which ought to govern the conduct of public men. The noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, had not held this language to him, but many others had. He should like to know how could he with consistency, propriety, or decency, hold the language which he had held with regard to the Irish Church—holding up that church as a political lie, and describing it as nothing national but in the nationality of its injustice if at the instance of Government or of private friends he gave up a resolution which he sincerely thought it would be an injustice to Ireland and a degradation in them to abandon? The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), in support of the course which Government was pursuing, had argued with reference to what the noble Lord called the inclinatio temporum. He wished the noble Lord would translate these words for the benefit of the country gentlemen. They seemed to him to have great elasticity about them; there was a power of expansion in them that would justify and comprehend everything. He recollected, when the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth accepted office in 1835, the political world were anxious to know what course of policy he would adopt. Many thought that he would abide, as he himself expressed it, by the sense of the country, as expressed by the majority of that House, and would not insist upon the inapplicability of ecclesiastical property to other than ecclesiastical purposes. A very remarkable pamphlet was published at that time by a gentleman very high in the confidence of the present Government, namely, Mr. Senior, and it was on the subject of national property. After taking a view of the whole question and of the right hon. Baronet's position, Mr. Senior went on to state that there were three reasons for change in a statesman's opinions.

"Firstly, a great intervening change in public affairs; secondly, error; and thirdly, interest. The first cannot be called inconsistency. The real inconsistency would lie in persisting in a course, for which the motives had ceased. As to the second there can be no general rule. But loose as our morality is, we have not yet gone so far as to sanction a change of opinion, originating in the third, with respect to the few questions, on the right decision of which, the welfare of the community depends."

Mr. Senior predicted, that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth would not change his opinions, because he believed him an honourable and prudent man, and well aware that no public man in this country could change his opinions in favour of his interest. Mr. Senior also predicted, that the right hon. Baronet would cease to be Minister within two months, and his predictions were realised. The right hon. Baronet adhered to his opinions, sacrificed place and power to his opinions, and ceased to be a Minister; but they must have a new edition of the pamphlet to tell them how those who rose into power upon the right hon. Baronet's fall, could now adopt the opinions of the right hon. Baronet, and make them their rule upon this occasion, and do so without the sacrifice of character and station. But had any intervening change occurred to justify this change of opinion? Was the Church more popular in Ireland, and were the people of that country more disposed to be satisfied with the simple commutation of tithes, in lieu of appropriation? He had looked at the recent accounts from Ireland, and he found, with the noble Lord's reasons before the people of Ireland, and with the debates in that House before them—what? Why in a Waterford paper on the 2nd of June in an article headed "Blood, blood." It contained the usual story of a tithe sale, at which the sheriff, the police, and the troops attended, when the cattle were sold for next to nothing, as there were no bidders, and where the people, excited to madness, made an attack upon the police. Again, in The Dublin Evening Post of the 19th of June there was an account of a meeting of not less than 60,000 people on the Curragh of Kildare, at which resolutions were carried amidst universal acclamation, denouncing the payment of tithes, and rejecting the compromise offered by the noble Lord. There was another meeting in Kilkenny attended by 100,000 persons, at which similar resolutions were agreed to, and at this meeting Mr. Pierce Butler, a gentleman of large landed property and a Protestant, took the chair. A similar meeting took place at Wexford, at which one of the speakers stated, that he would rather perish than submit to the payment of tithes. He asked them, could they put down this feeling—could they put down the agitation in which men of large property and station took part. They had but one of two ways to put down such feeling; they must either enact the penal laws or do justice. It was absurd to suppose that the commutation of tithes, with a rent charge payable by the landlord, would satisfy the people of Ireland. This would only have the effect of directing against rent that agitation which was now confined to tithes. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Harvey) told them this in 1836, and the noble Lord the Member for Northumberland, (Lord Howick) had expressed the same opinion in the following words:—

"The relation between landlord and tenant in Ireland is by no means in a satisfactory state. There are symptoms of the commencement of the same system of passive resistance to rents as that which has been so successful against tithes. Let us beware how we interfere with a subject of so much delicacy, and remember, that in doing so, we should indeed be playing with edged tools. If we pass this bill in the manner proposed on the other side, the effect will be that we shall compel the landlords to collect from the peasantry as a portion of their rent, the hated charge of tithes, without having done anything even to mitigate their hostility to it. To that particular portion of the rent, resistance would speedily commence; and can we doubt that this part of the rent having been successfully refused, the rest must soon follow?"

How could that noble Lord approve of the course Government was now taking? If the noble Lord did approve of it, he would set off the noble Lord's opinion in 1835, against his conduct on the present occasion; he would appeal from himself to himself, from "Philip drunk to Philip sober;" but the difficulty would be to know on which occasion Philip was drunk, and on which sober. He looked in vain for any reasons for the change in anything that had occurred. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) seemed to rest his whole justification upon the inclinatio temporum and the authority of Lord Grey. The noble Lord had said, that he was bound to confess that Earl Grey was right, and he himself was wrong in supposing that they could pass a tithe bill for Ireland, including appropriation, in the present state of public opinion in this country. He had all possible respect for Earl Grey's services—he acknowledged the debt which the country owed him for having carried the Reform Bill—but he was bound equally to declare that he did not consider Lord Grey a good authority on Irish measures. When he looked back to the state of the House in 1833, the overwhelming majority on those benches, and the purposes to which it might have been applied, had not confidence in the Ministry been shaken by the Coercion Bill—a bill which he could not look back to without shame and regret for the course he had himself adopted—when he recollected all these things, he did say, that Lord Grey was not an authority upon which he should be inclined to place reliance on Irish matters. There were two courses now open to them. One was, that they should abide by the principles which, on five different occasions, they had affirmed, that they should not try to give this principle any practical effect, but wait till time and public opinion enabled them to do so. This course would be consistent, and ought, in his opinion, to be followed. The other course was at once to admit that they had been in error, that the Gentlemen opposite were right and they were wrong, and that having broken up two governments on this principle, they were now ready to abandon it, and to admit that it was erroneous. The noble Lord had told the House that this bill would tend to produce peace and conciliation. What security was there for this? Was there any security that the Irish Municipal Bill would pass this session? Was it not certain that the bill which they sent to the other House would not pass in its present shape? He called upon the noble Lord to reconsider the course he was pursuing. It was impossible to look to Ireland without feeling that no measure would be satisfactory unless it comprehended the one thing wanting. The people of Ireland did not seek for the total abolition of tithes; all they sought for was, the extinction of tithes, or their appropriation to useful public purposes. He called upon the House not to sacrifice to mere temporary expediency or party convenience the eternal principles of justice. He called upon all those who had, on a former occasion, recorded their assent to the principle contained in his resolution to support it now, however their votes might be misrepresented, and however unpalateable the motion might be to some who conscientiously concurred with him in thinking, that the course he was pursuing was the course best calculated, in the end, to promote the interests of religion rightly understood, and to secure the peace and stability of the British empire. The hon. Member concluded by submitting the following resolution to the House:—

"That whereas, on the 3rd of April, 1835, this House agreed to the following resolution:—

"That this House do resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House, in order to consider the present state of the Church Establishment in Ireland, with the view of applying any surplus of the revenues, not required for the spiritual care of its members, to the general education of all classes of the people without distinction of religious persuasion:

"And whereas, on the 7th of April, 1835, this House agreed to a second resolution, stating,

"That it is the opinion of this House that, no measure upon the subject of Tithes in Ireland can lead to a satisfactory and final adjustment which does not embody the principle contained in the foregoing resolution:

"And whereas, on the 21st of July, 1835, on going into Committee upon the Irish Tithes Bill, the House refused to assent to an instruction to the Committee, the object of which was to divide the bill into two bills,' because inconsistent with the preceding resolutions:

"And whereas, on the 4th of June, 1836, the House rejected an amendment proposed upon the second reading of the Irish Tithes Bill of that Session, to the effect, 'That leave be given to bring in a bill for the conversion of tithe composition into rent-charges, and for the redemption thereof, and for the better distribution of ecclesiastical revenues in Ireland:'

"And whereas, on the 17th of May last, in this present Parliament of 1838, this House refused to rescind the resolutions of 1835, which, consequently, remain upon its journals—

"It be an instruction to the Committee, that they have power to make provision, in the present bill, for giving effect to these resolutions, by proceeding to a better distribution of ecclesiastical property in Ireland, and by appropriating the surplus revenues of the present Church Establishment, not required for the spiritual care of its members, to the moral and religious education of all classes of the people, without distinction of religious persuasion."

seconded the motion.

said, that although the speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield had been distinguished for the ability which usually marked what fell from him; and although it embraced many topics and arguments, and some crimination, yet he felt, that the course intended to be pursued by her Majesty's Government required at the period at which they had now arrived, very little of explanation; but whatever that might be, it should, at least, be stated by him, without any thing of disguise or concealment. He was far from seeking to encounter the premises and deductions of the hon. Member for Sheffield; they were, many of them, indeed, of the same texture and tendency as those which, with whatever less of ability, he felt that he had himself, on several occasions ventured to urge upon the attention of Parliament; they were, in fact, the grounds upon which the case of the Government on this question principally rested. Nor did he, on this occasion, wish to endeavour to pursue the case farther, or to follow the track of the hon. Member for Sheffield in his renewed sally against the anomalies and the abuses of the Irish Church. He considered the case of that Church to be now what he had always considered it, and had never shrunk from describing it. Yet, as he expressly stated, that on this occasion it was not his intention to enforce the principle of appropriation, as he laid aside that which had been held, and in his opinion erroneously held, to be an offensive weapon against the establishment, he did not wish to have the appearance of carrying on the argument after dropping the measure, as that would, in his opinion be a telum imbelle sine ictu, it would be going on railing after they had done fighting. In his opinion the substantial justice of the question remained where it was when they adopted the resolutions of 1835, and when recently they refused to rescind them; but his opinion also was, that a period had now come in 1838, after the experience of the unsuccessful attempts of three successive years, when it became a matter of paramount expediency, or, in other words, of paramount duty to terminate, at least to do the best to terminate, to leave no step untried, by which they might hope to terminate, the excitement, the agitation, the collisions, the litigation, the increasing dissensions, between the clergy and laity, the biting exasperations between Catholics and Protestants, and the increasing risk of bloodshed which were the result and consequence of the present state of the tithe question in Ireland. The hon. Member for Sheffield talked of four years as an insignificant period, and as of little moment in the progress of a great measure; but the hon. Member ought to consider that four years spent under such scenes, and liable to such risks, whatever they might be, in the progress of a great question, or the interests of a party, had no trivial or inconsiderable bearing upon the peace and prosperity of a whole people. The only document which, as far as he recollected, the hon. Member for Sheffield quoted as an inducement to them to postpone legislation, bore the ominous heading "blood, blood." When they knew that bloodshed might be the result, it was a duty incumbent on them, in the present state of public feeling in Ireland about this matter—he, at least, as responsible for some part of the conduct of affairs, felt, that he could not lightly bear the responsibility of allowing such a state of things to continue, the consequences of which might be so deplorable, and of which none could foresee the ultimate event. The hon. Member for Sheffield stated, in the course of his speech, that the whole tendency of his proceeding would be to leave the tithe question in the same state in which it had been left for the three last Sessions of Parliament. But they had to consider whether it would be for the good of Ireland so to leave it; and this question they had to refer to the people of Ireland, to the Representatives of Ireland, and conjointly to the Imperial Parliament, to determine whether or not it was for the public weal that they should leave this bill as it was upon the table of the House, and leave the question in suspense for another year, then to be taken up they did not know under what renewed and increasing circumstances of embittered and exasperated feelings? The hon. Member for Sheffield said, that all he wanted was, to wait quietly for a change of public opinion. He did not know, that they were much at issue on that point. He was as ready as the hon. Member for Sheffield to follow up public opinion when it coincided with his own notions of what was right, and he proposed to wait quietly. But he thought, the best mode of obtaining public opinion would be by adopting the present bill, to give the country a chance of repose, instead of adopting the course proposed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, a course attended with a thousand manifold dangers. He, and those with whom he acted, had struggled hard for the principle of appropriation; three times they had endeavoured to scale the perilous breach, and three times they suffered repulse, three times they had battled to carry the principle, and three times they had been defeated, and he could not shut his eyes to the fact that, in the present state of affairs and of parties, the chance of success in the present year was not, to say the least, one whit more promising. Feeling this, they had thought it their duty to bring forward a bill which did not comprise the principle of appropriation, and he equally felt that it was their duty, having taken this step according to the best of their judgment, and with a sincere view to doing what they thought would most benefit the country and secure the peace of that part which was mainly interested, namely, Ireland—having brought forward a bill which did not comprise the principle of appropriation, he felt called upon to resist the resolution now moved by the hon. Member for Sheffield. And he did this because, first, as to the abstract justice of it, he was contented with what they had done already, with what they had entered on the journals of the House, and refused to dislodge. And next, as to the practical result, he felt it impossible that the course proposed by the hon. Member for Sheffield could lead to any, and, therefore, while he did not give up those opinions which he formerly asserted, both by word and deed, in his speeches and votes, and which were steadily and firmly recorded in the journals of the House, still, with the sole and exclusive view of practically benefitting Ireland, by putting a stop to the immediate state of disturbance that prevailed there, he and those with whom he acted had thought it their duty to bring in a bill without appropriation; and, as he felt that he was under the necessity of not suffering that bill to be encumbered by the resolution which the hon. Member for Sheffield had moved that evening, he must give that resolution, for its intrinsic truth, a reluctant, but for its practical effect, a decided, negative.

said, that the situation in which he and many others were placed on the present occasion was an extremely unpleasant one. He was one who had never flinched from maintaining the principle embodied in the resolution of his hon. Friend, the Member for Sheffield, and he did not now dissent, in the slightest degree from it. It appeared, that it was the object of the Government to remedy the abuses in the present system of the Irish Church, as far as it was possible, with the concurrence of the other side of the House; for the whole question appeared to rest with them. Now, his own opinion was, that it was vain and useless to attempt to gain any thing by means of conciliation. If he thought that there was the slightest chance of restoring peace to Ireland by the proposition proposed by the noble Lord, he would readily support it. But it appeared to him that they had delayed this act of conciliation too long, and that in the present state of Ireland he would not be satisfied with so paltry a concession as that proposed. Sinecures must be altogether abolished, and the Church Establishment reduced to a scale commensurate with its congregation; and until that was done, Ireland would not be satisfied with any thing which might be offered. Until the principle of appropriation was recognised by Act of Parliament, Ireland would never be quiet; and if he were an Irishman he should not be satisfied till that was done. If, however, they were now to consent to lop off the surplus revenues of the Church, and apply them to general purposes of utility, he believed that peace might be restored to that country. With these opinions, he should give his vote honestly in favour of the motion of his hon. Friend.

said, that the performance of a duty ought not to be painful, and he would, therefore, beg respectfully to warn the Legislature from adopting a course, in the present instance, which might do much mischief. He should oppose the motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield, for the very reason which the hon. Gentleman had given in support of it; he should oppose it, because it led to a deception and a delusion, and because it offered that to the Irish people as the terms of purchase of the Irish Tithe Bill which they had almost unanimously rejected. The noble Lord, however, in some observations which he had made use of, had shown that there was more of peril in the present state of Ireland than as yet had been publicly avowed. For his own part, he would distinctly state, that never since he had embarked in public life, had he known Ireland to be in so dangerous a situation as that in which it was at present. He had often known occasions when the apprehension of armed resistance to the Government was entertained in Ireland—he had often felt, that proceedings had been adopted which rendered it almost impossible that an armed collision should not take place; but now he was more afraid than ever that a collision might take place which would terminate in a state of misery and insecurity to all parties that was incalculable. Instead of seeking to stimulate the tithe agitation now prevailing in Ireland, every man who had influence in that country, as all knew who were acquainted with its internal condition, had exerted himself to the utmost to abate it. He had himself proclaimed this dissent from the course which many persons in Ireland were now pursuing. In endeavouring to mitigate the present excitement, he had lost much of that popularity on which it was said here, that he placed such immeasurable value. He had seen, for some time past, the ebullition of the public mind—he had seen, for some time past, that, though the surface was tranquil, there was beneath the surface a volcano ready to burst, which, if it did burst, would spread ruin and destruction all around it. In spite of all the attempts which the Marquess of Normanby had made to tranquillise the public mind—in spite of all the exertions made by the best friends of Ireland to give effect to those attempts, there had been meetings, not only of tens of thousands, and of fifties of thousands, but also of hundreds of thousands, for the entire abolition of the present tithe system. On that subject, the people of Ireland required no stimulants, wanted no leaders, took no advice. They came together of their own accord, they sought no appropriation of a paltry imaginary surplus; but they called for the entire abolition of the tithe system. If it served the party purposes of hon. Gentle; men opposite, he had not the slightest objection to let them know that that fact existed. The determination of the people of Ireland was not to pay tithe, and, pay it, he could assure the House, that they would not. By calling out the army and the police, and by issuing Exchequer processes, the Church might succeed in getting tithe paid here and there; but still that would be something like a dumb civil war. You would get not an insurrection, but that obdurate passive resistance, which, when it was converted by any accident, as it might be, into an active collision, must terminate in bloodshed and loss of life on one side or the other. The meetings which had been mentioned by the hon. Member for Sheffield were few in number compared with those which had actually taken place—in point of fact, they did not form a sixth, or anything like a sixth part of the whole. One gentleman had informed him only that morning, that he had been requested to attend not less than seven of these meetings in the next ten days, and the resolutions to be proposed at every one of them were to the effect, that they would either have the tithes extinguished, or the amount of them applied to public and to useful purposes. The time was, when the people of Ireland would have entered into a compromise upon this subject. But, for his own part, he must say, that he would not enter at present into any compromise upon it; and why? Because, he thought, that such a compromise would be a deception both upon those who offered the compromise, and upon those who called for the extinction of tithe altogether. This was the situation in which the hon. Gentlemen opposite had at last brought the House. If, three years ago, they had consented to pass this bill, they would have conciliated Ireland, and half a century might have elapsed before the people of that country had asked for more. Every time that they opposed the just claims of the people of Ireland, what they offered in lieu of them became less and less valuable. By the present bill of the Government they obtained less than they would have obtained, had they acceded to the bill introduced three years ago. The Government now proposed to appropriate thirty per cent., and the Gentlemen opposite proposed to take twenty-five per cent. from the clergy. The dispute was only about five per cent., and, after all, it was on both sides an appropriation. On the principle, then, of appropriation, both sides of the House were agreed. You give it to the landlord, we take it from the clergy, and what cared he what term was given to that new mode of distributing it? Three years ago the people of Ireland would have taken those terms as a concession. Now, they cry, trumpet- tongued, that they will no longer pay any tithes at all. They would not be deluded by any imaginary surplus, that was to expand as Protestantism contracted, and to contract as Protestantism expanded. The hon. Gentlemen opposite would not accede at the proper time to a reasonable proposition, and now they turned round upon the people of Ireland, and told them that they would be unreasonable if they demanded that this surplus should be applied to useful spiritual purposes. He certainly intended to vote against the motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. He was for carrying out the principle of appropriation to a greater extent than that proposed either by the hon. Member for Sheffield or by the bill itself. He had already informed the House what he intended to propose in lieu of this bill. He required that out of the consolidated fund, provision should be made for the payment of the clergy of the established Church of Ireland, and that all the expense formerly incurred, for the maintenance of peace in that country, should be thrown upon the tithe fund, but should be paid at first out of the revenues received by the Woods and Forests. Thus they would have a compensation fund formed for what they paid the clergy of the established Church of Ireland. He knew, that it was idle for him to address the House upon this subject in any hope of succeeding, but he had told them the terms, and the only terms, upon which the people of Ireland would acquiesce in an arrangement of this sort. In Ireland, tithes were appropriated, not to the spiritual wants of the people, but to the temporal wants of the clergy. There was not a single parish in Ireland, in which the Roman Catholics did not outnumber the Protestants of all denominations, Take, for instance, the Protestant province of Armagh. Many Gentlemen who heard him, imagined that the Protestants of the established Church exceeded in number the Roman Catholics in the province of Armagh. Nay, many imagined, that the Presbyterians and other Dissenters exceeded the Roman Catholics in that province. In that province the number of Protestants of all denominations was 1,171,618. The number of Roman Catholics was 1,955,129. This gave a surplus of Catholics over Protestants of 783,505. If they went to the other provinces, they would find the result the same. Take the province of Dublin, for instance. The number of Protestants of all denominations was 183,609. The number of Catholics was 1,063,618. This gave a surplus of Catholics over Protestants of 880,072. In the province of Cashell the number of Protestants of all denominations was 115,835; that of the Catholics 2,223,636, which gave a surplus to the Catholics of 2,107,801. Again, in the province of Tuam, the number of Protestants of all denominations was 45,768; the number of Catholics was 1,188,568, which gave a surplus to the Catholics of 1,142,800. The gross total then of all denominations of Protestants in the four provinces of Ireland was 1,516,830, and of Catholics was 6,431,008, which gave a surplus to the Catholics of 4,914,178 or deducting the Protestants of the establishment, who amounted to 852,064, gave a surplus to the Catholics over the members of the established Church of 5,578,944. And after all this, the county heard of the necessity of maintaining the present overgrown establishment. If they were to have an union between the three countries, ought there not to be one common principle pervading their institutions? Had they in England a Church belonging only to a fraction, and a small fraction, of the people? No, quite the reverse. In Scotland it was the same. What, however, was the ease in Ireland? There they had the Church of less than a million persons pitted against 6,800,000 Catholics. It was idle under such circumstances to talk of the principle of the union pervading the three countries. On the contrary, the principle which pervaded all the proceedings of the Legislature was that of declaring the people of Ireland to be their inferiors. He asked whether, if the case were reversed, and there were in England a million of Catholics overriding the Church of ten or twelve millions of Protestants, there was a single man in the House, who would not admit, that the Protestants of England, would meet in tens and hundreds of thousands to put an end to such a state of things? They would not meet peaceably and orderly, as the people of Ireland had hitherto met. No; their very first meeting would endanger the Crown, and shake the constitution to atoms. The people of Ireland were men, like the people of England. They had the same feelings—they had the same sense of this crying injustice; and they had, besides it, the burning recollection of hundreds of other injuries. What was the Parliamentary Reform Bill—what was the franchise—what was the Municipal Reform Bill you had given to their country? They felt, that every revolution of England had only inflicted an additional injury upon them. Could they be expected to forget—forgiven they had—the first act of the reformed Parliament of Great Britain towards them? Could they be expected to forget that the first Act of the reformed Parliament was to abolish entirely the constitution in Ireland? He appealed to the hon. Gentleman opposite, whether they were advancing the cause of Protestantism by putting Protestantism forward on all occasions as an impediment to the progress of good government in Ireland? What was the reason why they refused a full and efficient reform to Ireland?—Protestantism. What was the reason that a fuller and more extensive franchise was not given to Ireland?—Protestantism. What was the reason that corporate reform was not extended to Ireland?—Protestantism. If the hon. Gentlemen opposite came out on all occasions with their "Protestantism" as an argument against doing justice to Ireland, they must not be surprised if they could not conciliate to it the respect and affection of the people of Ireland. They had long tried every species of coercion and had failed; they had, also, for 300 years tried the sword and gibbet, and had failed. Did they fancy that they could succeed by their present mode of arranging Irish differences? He felt it to be his duty to protest against the motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield. He would not vote against the bill, because he would not deprive himself of any chance which might remain of mitigating the spirit which now raged throughout Ireland. Gentlemen opposite might, if they pleased, suppose that he was one of those who had roused that spirit; but he had neither the merit nor the demerit of reviving the tithe agitation: that was first revived under the auspices of the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire. So far from wishing to continue it at the present moment, he had done all he could to prevent it. He had held out the olive branch, and it had been refused: he had done all in his power to induce the Protestants of Ireland to assist him in obtaining a settlement, and had met with very little success; but he had obtained a clear and distinct assurance, that by converting tithes into a rent charge they would not gain the people of Ireland. They would turn the landlords into tithe proprietors; they would have continual distractions between landlord and tenant: and, more than that, they would throw many landlords into the ranks of White-boys. He should probably have to recall to their recollection, that he had told them so; they would not, he repeated, by passing such a bill as this, conciliate the people of Ireland; they were merely raising up another host of interested persons, whose spirit of Protestantism would be overbalanced by a stronger feeling. If the payment of the rent charge were to be enforced by tithe processes, they would put many a white-boy in broad cloth who went now in frieze or in rags. By passing this measure they would perpetuate the insecurity of the establishment. If they chose to adopt a plan of conciliation, let them adopt one by which they would throw on the consolidated fund the expense of a provision for as many Protestant clergyman as they deemed wanting in Ireland, and compensate for it by paying to it the amount of all the obligations at present exacted from the peasantry of Ireland, in the vain attempt of preserving the tithe revenue of Ireland. He had now done his duty by warning the House of the consequences which would follow the attempt to satisfy the people of Ireland by means of the present measure. He should sit down, by telling them that they did not understand the perils attending the present state of Ireland, and if they were saved from them, it would not be by their own conduct, or by this plan for the alteration of the tithe law, but by the confidence reposed by the people of Ireland in others, and above all by their anxiety not to disturb such a Government as now existed in that country.

said, that notwithstanding the hour was yet early, he was not surprised that many hon. Gentlemen should be eager for a division, for the present subject was not one of those that would bear discussion. At the same time he felt that it deserved to receive discussion to a much greater extent than would be conceded to it, for although there appeared on the surface to be something of a well-understood discord, there was in this question far, more than belonged to many that had been agitated in that House during successive debates. Gentlemen who had the entrée of the House had delivered orations three hours in length upon various subjects, which they all might have well known, by referring to former Parliamentary debates, were little else than a compendium of gone-by discussions, and thus had heaped up a memorial of great pretensions, pretensions measured by the length of a speech—great because it was long, profound because it was unintelligible. He must be allowed to say, however, that there had been no subject of greater moment, and yet there was none that would be of more momentary importance, than that now before them; and if he should succeed in engaging the attention of the House only for a few minutes, it would be attributable to that kindness which conceded to the Speaker the expression of remarks that would have no sympathy, and in division no support, for he belonged to that powerful party in the House that had never yet been divided, because it had no followers. But it was gratifying to him to know that as reflection succeeded inquiry, so the soundness of opinions would be justified by time. Three years ago he had ventured to trespass upon the House at some length on the subject now under consideration, when he was denounced by his hon. and learned Friend for not supporting a motion which for the most cogent reasons he had now told the House he would oppose. It was then stated that his opinions would be repulsive to his constituents, and that it was only requisite to be known that he had desired in that place honestly to record them, in order that he might feel the weight of their indignation, and forfeit their confidence. Though all this was predicted, yet it was some satisfaction, not the less valuable because it was exclusive, to find that in this short space of time the sentiments which he then ventured to express were now concurred in by those who had then most prominently and strenuously opposed them. What great injustice was committed when they described the people of Ireland as the most inflammable of the empire, and talked of the country as being ready to be thrown into conflagration by the torch of discord, when his hon. Friend told them, that they were treading upon a volcano, that in a few short hours the eruption would break forth, an eruption perhaps of as much splendour as that lately witnessed in one of the parks. After all what did it amount to? All Ireland was ready to break out into a state of turbulence if they would not pass this measure. And what was it? When it was proposed in that House to consecrate the great and solemn principle of appropriation he had ventured in the simplicity of his mind to express his astonishment at the notion that there was any danger in the consecration of that principle, and now he found that they were all up in arms in its favour. Not a word was said, not a whisper was breathed, nor would there be, on the other side, against the principle of appropriation. They had heard the lights of the Church, the fathers of Protestantism, those who told them that there were millions starving for spiritual food—who told them that the fountains of living waters ought to be opened for the perishing people—who were prepared to support any motion by which the people would be taxed for the support and extension of established Churches, speaking in the most gracious, the most kind, the most paternal way, in support of a bill by which not the principle of appropriation would be recognized, but the principle of sacrilege sanctioned and acted upon. Thirty per cent., or twenty-five per cent.—for what signified the paltry difference?—was to be the extent of the plunder. At this very moment they were told the hideous spirit of popery was stalking the earth, and it was only to be put down by men of Christain zeal, of great forbearance as to this world's benefits, who were looking for their reward from on high, and who wanted increased support to strengthen their efforts for the defence of religious truth. Yet the men who told them so were prepared to agree to a measure that would take away at least twenty-five per cent. from the already inadequate funds of a country handed over to the miserable soul-destroying spirit of Papal error. Where were the sages of the Universities? He asked them were they prepared to stand by and see the foundations of Protestantism thus assailed without stepping in, and with all their power of eloquence, and still more all their strength of Christian zeal, rescuing the Church from this unhallowed plunder? His hon. Friend advised them to resort to the consolidated fund. Why, he could scarcely imagine that anything could be more gratifying to his hon. Friend and those who thought with him, than placing the clergy of Ireland on the consolidated fund; but would the hon. Gentlemen who were now supporting a bill to protect the sacred edifices from the hallowed contests and scrambles that now took place in them, consent to turn even this quiet and serene assembly, in which scarce a whisper of discord was ever heard, into an arena of conflict as to concessions of money from the consolidated fund to support the priests of Protestantism against the efforts of Papists in Ireland? As a Protestant he protested against this unhallowed principle, and he was really astonished, that the men who had been so prominent in their remarks upon all the measures suggested for the pacification of Ireland were so profoundly silent upon the present occasion. Perhaps the solution of the mystery was to be found in that extreme selfishness which led men to look to their own interests, while professing extreme anxiety for religion, and to sacrifice religion when they could gain earthly advantage. Without further preface he would come to the question. Had the Church of Ireland too large a revenue or had it not? If too much, who was entitled to the surplus? On what ground were the landlords of Ireland entitled to it? On what ground were the landlords of Ireland to be placed in a better position than the landlords of England? If there was a difference between the Churches established in the two countries, let them be treated as the circumstances of the difference required. But if hon. Gentlemen opposite contended, as he had heard them do repeatedly, that they were now legislating for the Church of Great Britain and Ireland, they ought not to distinguish the relative positions of the two countries, and must deal with the Churches as one. If there was a redundancy of revenue in Ireland, while they all declared that there was an inadequacy of means for the inculcation of religious truth in England, let them bring the funds which arose from the Protestant Church of Ireland to the aid of the starved and beggarly Church of England. Let them relieve their ill-requited missionaries, let them bolster up the cause of Christianity, and no longer make it a matter of reproach, that the lights of Protestant Christianity were starving; let them draw from Ireland those superfluous riches which were not to be found in their own beggarly country. But this was not the ground that the hon. Gentlemen opposite chose to take, and therefore he asked them to state broadly, whether the resources of the Church of Ireland were too great or not? If they were too great, bring them to swell the funds of the general Church, apply them to Irish purposes, subsidiary to the promotion of Christianity. Were there no practical virtues in alliance with its creed? Could not they alleviate the miseries of the poor, impart vigour to industry, make the people happy and contented? Were there no wretched habitations through which their superfluous riches might flow and diffuse gladness? Apply them, he said, in this way; but could there be any proposition so heartless, so contemptible, so mercenary, so devoid of humanity, as to tell those who were the chief defenders of Christianity, that there was no way by which Ireland could be pacified, by which the Catholics could be made to feel that their interests were identical with those of the Protestants, by which peace could be insured in this world, and a prospect of happiness in the next, except by pilfering the funds from which they derived a maintenance, for their own purposes? And yet such was the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite. In the general heyday of delight now beaming upon the public mind they were well nigh bewildered and incapacitated from judging of the effects which their policy would produce; but in a few short months the delusion would be dissipated. Not only were the Irish landlords to have a gift of 30 per cent. of the entire revenues of the Irish Church, amounting, it might be presumed, to something like 600,000l., but the people of England would not forget, that they had already received from the over-taxed industry of this country 700,000l. within the last three years to meet what were called the exigencies of the clergy. This sum was first proposed as a loan, next as a gift; by his own humble interposition that misappropriation of the public money had been prevented, and a return had recently been made to the House, stating the amount that had been repaid in accordance with the terms of the loan. That amount afforded a signal instance either of the poverty of the country or of the disgusting cupidity of the landlords, for at this moment not 7,000l. of the money had been returned. Nearly two years' purchase had the people of England already paid for the tithes of that country. It would be far better that a sum of money should be paid at once to buy up the whole tithe of Ireland, and extinguish it at once, for then an end would be put to these sessional interventions of Irish grievances. His hon. Friend had told them plainly and intelligibly, that this bill would not settle the question, yet they had heard within the last two months of mysterious discords and sinister cozenings by which a comprehensive scheme was to be set afloat for the accommodation of all differences, and for the quenching of all rivalry but the glorious one of serving their country best. But his hon. Friend had told them, that it was all a delusion. If, therefore, there were any hon. Gentlemen of tender but yielding consciences, who flattered themselves that by acceding to this awkward scheme of Church robbery they would proclaim peace and prosperity in Ireland, they were told by the accredited oracle of that country that they would produce no such effect. Far better would it be, that tithes in Ireland should remain in their present state. He remembered the shout of derision with which the assertion of the hon. Gentleman opposite had been received—that the law in Ireland was sufficiently strong to maintain the rights of the tithe-owners. If the law had been vindicated in Ireland, was it possible that the friends of the Church would consent to rob the clergy of 30 per cent.? Could the upholders of Protestantism consent to stand by and see the poor Irish clergyman with 100l. a-year, who journied over mountains and forded deep streams in the icy months of winter, passing from one part of his curacy to another—could they consent to see these starving memorials of Christianity reduced to a still more paltry pittance of 70l.? The scheme might do very well for pursey pluralists, turning up the trump card at Cheltenham, and luxuriating in fashionable watering places; but he called on them to interpose in aid of the clergyman exhausted with his toilsome duties, travelling through the bogs of Ireland, against this deliberate act of Parliamentary plunder. Was there any curate, vicar, or rector, great in services, but little in recompense, who said, "In order to secure me my 100l. guarantee to me 70l." He owned he had some suspicion, when they fancied they had got rid of the present tithe system in Ireland, and that the payment of the clergy was to be charged on the consolidated fund, they would say to one another, "Be quiet, say nothing, don't let it out, we shall do very well. We shall not only charge 70l. to the consolidated fund, but when we want it, 100l.; and any further sum that may be necessary." This he feared might follow in course of time, if they once recognized the principle that the Protestant religion was to be supported out of the consolidated fund. It was all very well for his hon. Friend to stand by and chuckle at their delusion, and a great delusion it was, for he was quite well satisfied, that hon. Gentlemen on the other side, and he would go the length of saying four-fifths of the hon. Gentlemen on his own side of the House, would be very well pleased to charge the support of the English Church, and the Irish Church, or any other Church, upon the consolidated fund, if its resources were considered inadequate for its purposes. But this suggested another consideration, which, though not very likely to be acceptable to the country, would be appreciated by it, and which ought to be understood by all who were to give a vote on the question—he meant its bearing on party interests. He hardly knew how to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman opposite, in what terms of admiration he should speak of the philosophical calmness and dignified composure which led him to pass by that political insult to himself and his party, by which he was mowed down, on the express ground that no bill for the settlement of the Irish Church could be permanently satisfactory that did not contain the appropriation clause. If the right hon. Gentleman, however, and his numerous adherents, and his still more numerous expectants, were satisfied, so should he be, for it might savour of the grumbler, if he complained. On that occasion, he himself had but followed his leader; it was not for privates in an army to choose the ground of conflict; that office was performed by great men of elevated station, who had to look over the field, and determine on the most advantageous site. However, the battle was fought with great bitterness, and he must say with great success; and now behold the result! He congratulated the hon. Members on the political serenity which had come over them, though he inferred from it a good deal of suspicion. If they could fortu- nately give the go-by to the appropriation clause—this invaluable appropriation clause—by which 50l. or 60l. a year might be applied to the purposes of education—if they could give the go-by to this invaluable advantage, he advised a compromise, although it would be the duty of the House to infer the consequences. One thing he protested against—that this was to be a means of tranquillizing Ireland; quite the reverse; and he was glad to hear his hon. Friend so unreserved. No sacrifice would, he admitted, be too large to secure that benefit; but be saw in the concession the continuance of hostility, he saw the motives of that hostility, the cupidity of landlords stirring up their tenants to resistance under the impression that they were resisting the rate (and there was no real difference between the tithe and the rate); that they would, with practised cunning and aristocratical art, excite their tenants to resistance, and to all those acts, and that responsibility, which ultimately led up to capital liability. But till it was well understood, that by this concession, Parliament was not consulting the cupidity of the great, but the interests of the poor, all chance of making any progress in putting a stop to these bickerings, through which the affairs of the country were so long neglected, was gone. No sacrifice would be too great to have these great questions settled. He believed, that there was a great delusion in the principle, a great fraud in the design, a great insult to public expectations, and a great neglect of public business in the proposition, and he could not give his support to a proposition which was dishonest in its purpose, and futile in its effects.

observed, the hon. Member for Southwark, who seemed to consider himself the very model of consistency had directed so much of his argument to that (the Opposition) side of the House, that he had imposed upon him (Sir R. Inglis), the necessity of addressing the House. The hon. Member had stated, that the principle was conceded, if the House adopted the proposition of the noble Lord, or that of his right hon. Friend, the Member for the University of Dublin. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman, that it was a concession of principle, if either twenty-five per cent, or thirty per cent were agreed to. It had been shown, that the law could not be re- sisted with impunity; and if he did not misunderstand the hon. and learned Member for Dublin (though his words were rather obscure), he bad himself given an example of obedience to the law by paying the tithe he bad so long resisted. If the full amount of the produce of the tithe were in the hands of the tithe-holders of Ireland, Parliament would have no right to diminish that amount of dues to the clergy by twenty per cent, or even five per cent. But so far from this, not a 30th, in some cases not a 60th, and in some not even an 80th, was paid to the tithe-holders. It was not proposed to make a deduction from the amount which the tithe-holder had a right to receive; but if the burthen was taken from the cultivators, and placed on the landlord, then some deduction might be made from him on account of the advantage which would accrue to the tithe-holders by the transfer; and he would consent to twenty-five per cent, or to any deduction to which the tithe-holder would consent, for the advantage of looking to the landlord, instead of the cultivator. The noble Lord would take thirty per cent. If the hon. Member for Southwark would propose a reduction to ten per cent, or five per cent, he would be ready to go to the lowest amount he pleased. He believed, there was no necessity for any deduction, and that the law was sufficient to enforce the rights of the tithe-holders, if her Majesty's Ministers would support the law in Ireland, as in England. He would support his right hon. Friend's proposition for twenty-five per cent, because it was in opposition to the noble Lord's proposition for thirty per cent.

The House divided on Mr. Ward's motion. Ayes 46; Noes 270: Majority 224.

On the question being again put,

rose, pursuant to notice, to move that the Bill be committed that day three months. The House had the authority of Government that the principle of appropriation, which they now repudiated in this Bill, was the only principle on which they could legislate in a satisfactory manner concerning tithes in Ireland. They had the experience also of past years to show how ineffectual was all legislation on the subject not containing that principle; for the whole scope and tendency of that legislation had been directed to the collection of the revenue, while they left the principle unchanged. The excitement of the people of Ireland on this subject was intense. He had seen resolutions, pledging parties to abstain from the use of exciseable articles until they attained their object. Now, there was nothing at all in the Bill to allay this excitement. What, then, called for such a measure as this, which did not materially alter the existing law of tithe? The people of Ireland did not call for it; they regarded it with unequivocal hatred. Did the clergy ask for it? He apprehended not, for he had seen resolutions passed by bodies of the clergy, in different parts of the country, in which this very measure was most strongly condemned. He also objected that the tithe would still remain, though under another name. Hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side had heretofore protested loudly against the application of any portion of the Church revenues to any other than ecclesiastical purposes; yet they now gave their assent to the cutting off of one-fourth of the tithes, for the purpose of putting it into the pockets of the landlords. Such conduct was altogether inconsistent. He was opposed to this Bill, because he thought it a delusion on the public. He said this from no party feelings or motives; for he hardly expected that he should have a seconder to his proposition. He moved that the Bill be committed that day three months.

said, that it was not from any want of respect for the hon. Baronet that he abstained from following him in his remarks on the Bill. It might be right or it might be wrong to give up the appropriation clause; but having given it up for the sake of passing a Tithe Bill, and the House having given, in the last division, so very significant an expression of its opinion on the subject, it could not be expected that it would now entertain the hon. Baronet's motion to get rid of the Bill altogether.

Amendment negatived.

House went into Committee.

First Clause agreed to.

On the second Clause abolishing tithe compositions without prejudice to the provisions of the 3rd and 4th of William 4th, c. 100.

objected to this clause, that it left the tithe-owner or rather the people in Ireland liable to the repayment of the advances made under the Million Act; the Government had departed from two of their own former bills, and he could not believe that they were serious in threatening to force the clergy into collision with the occupiers to recover these advances. The entire five instalments, or the whole sum advanced, would be due in November of next year, amounting to near two years tithes, and high in proportion to the disturbed or distressed state of the country. So much so, that while in the county of Antrim the loan was not one-tenth of the composition, in Kilkenny and other parts of the south it was double the annual tithe composition. If then, the Legislature forced the clergy again into collision with the occupiers for the collection of these arrears, it would be mockery to press this bill as a final settlement, tending to promote peace and quiet throughout the country. Let it be recollected that the clergy had never received this money, or the people paid it; but the advance under the Million Act in lieu of it, was made to the clergy with the deduction of fifteen and twenty-five per cent., and there was this injustice and absurdity in the act—that all future incumbents and future occupiers were to continue liable to the repayment of the Million Act; so that if it was now enforced it would be in the first instance from incumbents who had never received it, and through them from occupiers who might never have been liable to pay it; then the Government could not in common fairness press this payment, after having in 1835 and 1836 brought in bills remitting it, and since passed two temporary acts suspending the enforcement of it, and he (Mr. Shaw) could mention cases where the clergy had consulted the Government whether they could safely receive and give receipts for the accruing composition without the million instalments, and the Government advised them to do so, without enforcing the payment of the instalments: so allowing them to run from year to year in arrear until the whole is due, and in common consistency or justice they cannot now attempt to recover them. So far from making any such futile attempt as now to collect near 700,000l. from the occupying tenantry, he (Mr. Shaw) would be glad to see the balance of the million paid over in lieu of all arrears due to the clergy, as had been proposed by the noble Lord (Lord Morpeth) in his Bill of 1835, and thus to have a clear stage from the present moment, all future money dealings being between the landed proprietor and the tithe-owner. He would therefore move the omission of this Clause, reserving the clause he intended as a substitute for the proper period.

objected to the Amendment, first, in point of form, and secondly, because if the Government consented to remit the repayment of the arrears under the Million Act, they must also consent to surrender all arrears due by the occupying tenant to the clergy, for they would not be able to collect them without hazarding the peace of the country. The clause stated, that the act for the recovery of those arrears should remain in force, as if the right to the compositions were still subsisting, until Parliament should otherwise provide. That was all the House was called upon to assent to; while the right hon. Gentleman, by his Amendment, would deprive the Crown of all chance of recovering arrears due under the Million Act, and thereby cause a loss to the country of 640,000l. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman himself whether the release of all parties from the payment of advances made under the Million Act would not be unjust, and particularly so in the case of the lay impropriators of tithes, many of whom were very wealthy, and in most cases the owners in fee.

said, that if this clause, were allowed to remain, it would in all probability prove a bar to the settlement of the question. The proposition contained in the clause of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer required much time for consideration. It required much information on matter of detail, and the House ought to know, before it decided upon it, many circumstances of which it was not now in possession, and amongst others, how much of the instalments had been collected, and what remained due from the occupying tenant. If the Chairman decided, that the course proposed by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Dublin, could not be entertained in point of form, they must bow not to justice, but to the forms of the House, but otherwise he should support the motion of his right hon. Friend.

said, that the effect of the proposition of the right hon. Recorder of Dublin was, that the people of England should forego 640,000l. in hard cash, in order to secure peace for Ireland. He protested against the people of England being saddled with an exaction which he never could consider as otherwise than dishonest in its origin.

was decidedly of opinion, that this money ought to be remitted. The clergy of Ireland had had every reason from the Government of the country to believe that they would not be called on to refund the money.

considered that the present proposition was quite in accordance with the declaration of the noble Lord the Home Secretary in 1835.

had all along said, that the money would never be paid back; and and let them do what they would, it never would be refunded.

thought that, under all the circumstances of the case, it would be better to withdraw the clause he meant to propose, for the present, in order that he might propose it upon the bringing up of the report.

Clause 2 agreed to.

On Clause 3,

said, he fully concurred in the principle, that there should be some allowance made on account of the increased security which the present mea- sure gave to the incomes of the clergy. He was ready to make a reasonable allowance; 30 per cent. he did not think involved any principle whatever, but he objected to that deduction, because he thought its amount unreasonable. He should say, that 20 per cent. would be a very proper sum, but as 25 per cent. had been already mentioned, he saw some difficulty in receding from it. At present the various deductions from the incomes of the clergy amounted to not less than 40 per cent. while the average incomes of the whole body of the clergy did not exceed 2501. a-year. He should move, instead of "seven-tenths," to introduce the words "three-fourths."

did not think the sum proposed by the Government was at all unreasonable. There was nothing in the state of Ireland to change their views of the sum which had uniformly been held out as the proper allowance.

The Committee divided on the original motion: Ayes 188; Noes 167—Majority 21.

After a desultory discussion on the clause without adopting any part of it,

moved that the Chairman report progress.

was quite sure it would be impossible to finish the clause to-night. He therefore hoped the Chairman would report progress.

The Committee divided: Ayes 58; Noes 219—Majority 161.

Two other divisions, on similar motions took place, and it not being possible to carry the bill any further at that time, on a third such motion being made, it was no longer opposed.

The House then resumed. The Committee to sit again.