Thursday, April 13, 1848.

MINUTES,] PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Horsham Borough; Small Debts.—Indemnity.

2° Petty Bag Office.—Exchequer Bills (17,946,500l.). PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. Pattison, from Citizens of London, for an Extension of the Franchise.—By Mr. J. O'Connell, from various Places in Ireland, for Repeal of the Union.—By Mr. Clay, from Kingston-upon-Hull, complaining of Forgery of Signatures to the Petition of the Inhabitants of the British Isles. —By Mr. Wood, from Oxford, for the Adoption of Universal Suffrage.—By Mr. Cobden, from Lincoln, and Mr. Forester, from Coal. brookdale and Ironbridge, for the Better Observance of the Sabbath.—By Captain Jones, from Dunboe (Londonderry), and the Earl of Lincoln, from Airdrie, for Alteration of Law respecting Sites for Churches (Scotland).—By Mr. Bremridge, from Attorneys and Solicitors of several Places, for Repeal of the Duty on Attorneys' Certificates. — By Sir H. Williamson, from Sunderland, and Mr. East, from Winchester, for the Exemption of Charitable Bequests from Legacy Duties.—By Mr. Gardner, from Theale (Berkshire), for Reduction of Duties on Tea, Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa.— By Dr. Bowring, and other Hon. Members, from several Places, against the Crown and Government Security Bill.—By Mr. Duncan, from Dundee, and Lord Rendlesham, from Southtown (Suffolk), against the Diplomatic Relations, Court of Rome, Bill.—By Viscount Bernard, and Mr. G. Hamilton, from several Places, for Encouragement to Schools in Connexion with the Church Education Soctety (Ireland).—By Mr. S. Crawford, from Rochdale, for a Free Pardon to Frost, Williams, and Jones. "By Mr. Cobden, from Huddersfield, for Repeal of the Game Laws.—By Mr. J. O'Connell, from several Places in Ireland, against the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Bill.—By Mr. Du Pre, from Buckingham, for Alteration of the Lunatic Asylums Act.—By the Earl of Lincoln, from Merchants and Shipowners of Grangemouth, against the Repeal of the Navigation Laws.—By Mr. G. Hamilton, from Cecil (Tyrone), for Inquiry respecting the Poor Law (Ireland).—By Viscount Castlereagh, from Downpatrick, for the Prohibition of Processions (Ireland).—By Mr. Bernal, from Rochester, against the Public Health Bill; and by Viscount Morpeth, from London, in favour of the same.

MR. J. O'CONNELL asked the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland, whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government that Colonel Browne should remain in his present office as head of the Dublin police? Colonel Browne could not expect to retain the respect or confidence of the public after what had occurred. He also asked the right hon. Baronet whether Her Majesty's Government were aware that Colonel Browne had publicly denied having instructed the man Kirwan to give orders for the manufacture of pikes, and whether that denial did not appear to be an afterthought?

SIR W. SOMERVILLE said, that when the hon. Gentleman put a similar question to him a few evenings ago, he stated he would prefer not giving a distinct answer at that time, because he thought no dependence could be placed upon the newspaper reports, they being exceedingly contradictory. He was exceedingly glad he had deferred answering the question on that occasion, because he was now enabled to give a distinct contradiction to any such assertion as that Colonel Browne had employed individuals to make pikes. He could not do better than read Colonel Browne's own statement of the circumstances. He said—

"I have to state most positively that I never gave directions to Kirwan, or any other person, to entice or induce blacksmiths, or other artisans, to manufacture pikes; but having received information that such weapons were made in several parts of Dublin, I employed Kirwan and others to call at the blacksmiths' shops, and buy some of them if they were to be had. I even cautioned them that the pikes must be ready made."

Here was Colonel Browne's positive and distinct contradiction that he ever employed Kirwan to order the manufacture of pikes. When his hon. Friend asked him whether he did not think this was an afterthought, he must say he thought the positive contradiction of Colonel Browne, an officer and a gentleman of high respectability, deserved credence rather more than the report of a newspaper taken in a police court, upon which, as every hon. Member knew, entire reliance could not be placed.

MR. THORNELY brought up a special report from the Select Committee on Pub-

lic Petitions, which was read by the clerk at the table as follows:—

"The House, on the 26th of November last, directed your Committee, in all cases, to set forth the number of signatures to each petition; and also, having regard to the powers delegated to them, to report their opinion and observations thereupon to the House, and they have agreed to the following special report: That on the 10th of April last, a petition for universal suffrage, &., from the inhabitants of the British Isles, and subjects of the British Crown, was presented to the House. Your Committee strongly feel the value of the right of petition, and they consider that the exercise of it is one of the most important privileges of the subjects of this realm. They feel the necessity of preserving the exercise of such a privilege from abuse; and having also due regard to the importance of the very numerously signed petition forming the subject of the present report, they feel bound to represent to the House, that in the matter of signatures there has been, in their opinion, a gross abuse of the privilege. The hon. Member for Nottingham stated, on presenting the petition, that 5,706,000 names were attached to it; but, upon the most careful examination of the number of signatures in the Committee-room, and at which examination thirteen law-stationers' clerks were engaged upwards of seventeen hours, with the person ordinarily employed in counting the numbers appended to petitions, under the superintendence of the clerk of your Committee, the number of signatures has been ascertained to be 1,975,496. It is further evident to your Committee, that on numerous consecutive sheets the signatures are in one and the same handwriting. Your Committee also observed the names of distinguished individuals attached to the petition, who can scarcely be supposed to concur in its prayer: among which occurs the name of Her Majesty, as Victoria Rex, April 1st, F. M. Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, &. &. Your Committee have also observed, in derogation of the value of such petition, the insertion of numbers of names which are obviously fictitious, such as "No Cheese," "Pug Nose," "Flat Nose." There are others included, which your Committee do not hazard offending the House and the dignity and decency of their own proceedings by reporting. It may be added that there are other signatures appended obviously belonging to the name of no human being."

On the question that the report do lie on the table,

MR. F. O'CONNOR said, he was happy to think that there had been unusual activity with respect to this petition. It was announced to him yesterday, about twelve o'clock, by a Member of the Government, that the petition had been examined, and that there were not above 1,900,000 signatures to it. He did not undertake to say, nor had he ever said, nor would it be possible for him to say, that there had not been some of the practices resorted to which the Committee had represented; but there was an old saying, "He who hides can find;" and he had no doubt that in a great national undertaking like that, something like the spy system had been had recourse to. He had, however, pretty strong collateral proof that the number of signatures to the petition had far exceeded what the Committee had reported; and, without wishing to cast the slightest blame upon the Committee on Petitions, he should move for a Committee to investigate that particular petition. He had himself received statements from parties who had been concerned in getting up that petition, and who, he was sure, would not lend themselves to anything of an improper kind, showing that in Manchester alone the petition had received 175,000 signatures, and in Birmingham 75,000; and he had other statements from England, Scotland, and Wales, from parties who had undertaken the petition, showing upwards of 4,800,000 signatures. He had presented a petition, praying for the introduction of the Land Company Bill, which contained 203,000 signatures. In that number there was no error, and he did himself lift that petition, and place it upon the table of that House. The petition which he presented on Monday, however, was on four rolls, and not a Member of that House could have lifted the largest of them. He did not impute anything to the Committee, but he did say, that if they left out absurdities, such as "Pugnose," "the Duke of Wellington," and so forth, he had no doubt but there would be left five million of legitimate signatures. He asserted, moreover, that thirteen clerks could not have counted 1,900,000 signatures in seventeen hours, nor could twenty have done it. He did not believe any such thing as that the petition was only signed by 1,900,000 persons; and if the House doubted his assertions, he would, ere long, present one with two or three times the amount.

MR. THORNELY, as Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, assured the hon. and learned Gentleman that the petition in question had been received with all the respect due to a petition so very numerously signed; and if he might take the liberty of speaking of an individual so humble as himself, he would say, that there were points which the petitioners urged for the consideration of that House —the ballot for instance—in which he entirely agreed with them. But the House would be aware—a fact of which the hon. and learned Gentleman was, perhaps, ignorant—that when the Committee on Petitions was appointed, at an early part of the Session, they were instructed to report to the House the number of signatures to each and every petition presented. It had been necessary to call in additional aid for that purpose in the case of the present petion; but he believed, and indeed he had no doubt, that the number had been fairly ascertained. He should add that the petition had been weighed, and that its weight was 5¾ cwt. He had no more to say, except that the Committee was too well known to require any vindication by him.

LORD J. RUSSELL: I give the most implicit credit to the report of this Committee. I think it is entitled to our full confidence. We must remember, however, besides all the circumstances which they have mentioned, that they could not take into account the great number of idle people and passers by who, seeing a petition at the corner of the street, might have thought fit to sign it, without having any wish for the Charter, or at all concurring in the views of the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman, however, has made one suggestion, which I think is rather valuable, namely, that that proceeding of feigned names may be a part of a spy system of the Government. Now, I beg to suggest to the hon. Gentleman whether that spy system may not extend still further, and whether the Members of that Convention themselves are not parts of a spy system? Because, if they intended to promote peace and order, and were spies of the Government, I think they could have done nothing better than put forward such menacing declarations, and then have I acted in so orderly and peaceable a manner as they did.

The EARL of ARUNDEL and SURREY stated that, in a proclamation which had since been put forth by the Chartists, it was declared that a glorious demonstration had taken place, and that a quarter of a million were present on Kennington Common. From the highest and most unsuspected sources he had been assured that the number, spectators included, at no time exceeded 25,000. He believed there were not more than 15,000; but, in order to be quite safe, he would say 25,000. He asked why would the people longer be gulled by the leaders of that Convention, who bad so grossly deceived them with regard to their numbers, and had thus proved themselves false to the country, traitors to the Queen, and rebels to their God?

MR. J. O'CONNELL stated that he had been waited upon by the leading Repealers in London, who had informed him that the Repealers as a body had taken no part in the proceedings of Monday last, and that they would not ally themselves with any agitation which was accompanied by violence. There were not above 2,000 Repealers, including women and children present.

SIR R. H. INGLIS said, that there had been never such a gross exaggeration of numbers as in respect to the petition of the Chartists; except perhaps the exaggeration of numbers in respect to those who formed their meeting on Monday last. For weeks past it had been announced that this petition was signed by more than had ever joined in any address to this House or to the Crown; and the number of signatures was stated, in his hearing, on Monday last, when the petition itself was brought up, to be 5,706,000. He pledged himself that this account was formally and deliberately given in the face of the House of Commons by the hon. Member for Nottingham, who had the charge of the petition, and professed to be the leader of the petitioners. Now what was the fact? Why, that the absolute number of signatures professing to be names was 1,974,496. He did not deny, that this was an enormous and perhaps unprecedented mass of signatures; but, in the first place, and as to proportions, it was as if some one had asserted a fact as if more than 500, whereas it turned out to be, at the best, a fact of less than 200; in the next place, as to the real value of the signatures themselves as representing the mind and will of any body of men, it was obvious on a glance at the petition itself, that large strings of names, perhaps whole sheets, were written by one and the same man, without any explanation, profession, or allegation that he was authorised by any others to subscribe their names. In the next place, some of the names, as the special Report had already stated, were names of persons so eminent in position, and at the same time so notoriously hostile to the objects of the petition, that the bare enumeration of them would prove that they had not been attached by the parties themselves to any such prayer: In the last place, there were, among the so-called signatures, words such as "No Cheese, Pugnose, Flatnose," &. which no less obviously represented no real petitioner. Though he did not deny, that, after all, there were hundreds of thousands

of real signatures, however little many of them might have been bonâ fide cognisant of the object of the petition; yet all this proved, that the petition itself had been so got up as to be hardly worth the paper on which it was written; at least, he might say, that a petition with a tenth or twentieth part of the number of professed signatures would, under other circumstances, have been worth much more. He felt bound, therefore, to add, that the parties who made such exaggerations in the first instance, and committed such gross abuses in the next, were the real and the worst enemies of the right of petitioning. He did not mean to propose any formal resolution to the House on the subject at present; but he could not help submitting, whether it would not be a just and proper means of securing the House from similar impositions hereafter, and the right of petitioning from the contempt which the late abuses cast upon it, if the House were in future to require that the designations and the residences of all the parties who subscribed a petition should be attached to their names. This would prevent some of the abuses, and diminish the recurrence of others, which had thrown on the present petition a scorn and ridicule so deserved. So much for the matter of the petition of the Chartists: as to their meeting, he desired to add his hope, that Her Majesty's Government would state to the House what resolution, or what measure, they intended to propose—first, with a view of preventing such a disturbance of the public peace as had taken place last Monday; and, secondly, with a view of acknowledging the means by which its further and more serious violation had then been prevented. No exertions ought to be omitted to preserve the institutions which we enjoyed; and if we were to be threatened, week after week, with such a demonstration as the hon. and learned Member for Nottingham had made, or attempted to make, last Monday, he trusted that some measure would be taken to prevent its recurrence. It was true that, in the late instance, the physical force which was wielded by the hon. Member, was about in proportion to the moral-force value of the petition which he had presented. But the evil which, even by his failures, he could still accomplish, was too great to be tolerated by any Government in a healthy action. He hoped, too, that Her Majesty's Ministers would bring forward, or could state that they had already prepared, some proposition for

acknowledging the exertions made to preserve peace and good order by the almost unanimous energies of the people of this metropolis. It was not by a military force that this result had been obtained. He did not undervalue the disposition of the forces on that occasion—he did not underrate the indirect influence which the knowledge of their nearness and their readiness must have produced on the organised masses of the multitude whom the hon. Member for Nottingham had on that day brought together in London; but he could not forget that far larger military means than our own had lately failed utterly in Paris, in Berlin, and in Vienna, in preserving the institutions which they were appointed to defend. And in respect alike to the civil and to the military power, he felt assured, that both his noble Friend at the head of the Government, and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on the one side, and his right hon. Friends the Members of the late Government, whom he saw on the other side of the House, would concur with equal cordiality in the acknowledgment that England owed its present safety, not to an arm of flesh, or to any human wisdom and firmness, but to the blessing of Almighty God; and, therefore, that all would gratefully ackowledge, that "unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

MR. CRIPPS said, after what the hon. Gentleman had said, and the reflections he had made upon the Committee—[Mr. F. O'CONNOR: I made no reflections upon the Committee.] If the hon. Gentleman did not mean to reflect upon the character of the Committee, he meant nothing at all. The Committee had taken every pains with this petition, that there should be no mistake. His attention was first called to the circumstance when the hon. Member made that audacious statement, that the petition was signed by 5,000,000 persons. He went from his place as soon as he heard that statement, and spent two hours and a half over that very interesting document, the Population Abstract for 1841; and he might state, that upon every calculation which he could make he came to the conclusion that the petition could not be signed by half that number. He certainly was not aware at that time that the petition was signed by women. He found, however, upon taking a number of sheets at random, that in every 100,000 names there were 8,200 women. The hon. Gen- tleman said the petition weighed five tons. They had weights and scales in the Committee-room, and found that it weighed little more than five hundred weight. Perhaps the hon. Member would say he meant five hundred weight. [Mr. F. O'CONNOR: I never said so.] He would pledge his word of honour to the House, that the hon. Gentleman had said it weighed five tons. He had himself heard him say so. At any rate three crazy cabs brought it down to that House. He did not wish to throw ridicule and obloquy upon the petition, but he did throw ridicule and obloquy upon the hon. Gentleman who presented it.

MR. F. O'CONNOR: I rise, Sir, to order. The hon. Gentleman's observations require explanation.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make an explanation with regard to personal conduct, though he has no absolute right to speak upon the subject, I have no doubt the House will allow him. If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to explain personal conduct, he must not interrupt another hon. Member when he is addressing the House.

MR. CRIPPS continued: He would repeat the observation, and he would say that if ever any Member of that House had laid himself open to charges which ought to deprive him of every credence to which man is entitled, that Member was the hon. Member for Nottingham. He would say for himself, that he could never believe the hon. Member again; and he trusted that those deluded persons who had assembled on Kennington Common would also withdraw their confidence from him. Were such meetings to be allowed, bearing in their train robbery and the most atrocious results; was another meeting to be held within a fortnight, for the purpose of concocting such a ribald mass of obscenity and impiety as was contained in the petition under consideration? Language the most disgusting pervaded the whole petition; there were words in it which the vilest strumpet in the street would blush to name. The Duke of Wellington's name occurred fifteen or sixteen times. The name of the hon. and gallant Member for Lincoln (Colonel Sibthorp) several times; and the names of the hon. Members for Manchester and West Yorkshire he did not know how many times. On one of the sheets he knew, and he believed on several of them, were written the words, "We could not get paid for any more to-day." He was thankful from the bottom of his heart, that he had not done what he was very nearly tempted to do. If he had only taken up a sheet of the petition, when it lay at the foot of the table, and had happened to have stumbled upon one of the ten or twelve sheets, he should have objected to the receipt of that petition; for he could have put sheets into the Speaker's hands, which he could never have read to that House. He deeply regretted that such blasphemy and obscenity should have caused the Government so much uneasiness, and have put them to so much expense. Now the hon. Gentleman said he could present a petition signed by three times as many persons. Why, the whole number of males in England above 15 years of age did not exceed 7,000,000 persons. He hoped the House would not cast a reflection upon the Committee on Public Petitions, by appointing another Committee to consider this particular petition.

MR. O'CONNOR: There are three points on which I must give some explanation. I hope I shall do so without the excitement which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester has displayed. The first point has relation to the House; the second to the Committee; and the third to myself personally. I gated at the outset that I attributed not the slightest blame—not even a sinister intention—to the Committee; but I said it was impossible for the number of clerks employed to have got through the work in double the time they were employed. With regard to the petition itself, I could not be supposed to be accountable for anything written in it. Was it possible for me, in the nature of things, to examine the different sheets? I never saw one of them till I saw them rolled up here. I am now told I had no business to present any petition the character of which I did not know. If such were the rule, that petition would never have been presented at all. As to my having forfeited my title to credence, in having presented a petition for which I am not responsible, with all respect to the House and the Committee, I shall have that explained elsewhere.

The hon. Member immediately left the House.

MR. J. G. SMYTH: Having been present at the meeting on Kennington Common on Monday last, I am anxious that, as far as possible, the numbers present should be accurately stated. I saw both the arrival of the procession and the com- mencement of the proceedings, and it is my deliberate conviction that at no time of the day were there more than 15,000 present. That I believe to be an excessive calculation. I have reason to know, that previous to the meeting means were taken to ascertain the whole number of persons which could be present if the Common were entirely covered. The whole space, closely packed, would not hold more than 90,000, and at no time was there more than a quarter of the space occupied. I have further to state, that I am convinced I exaggerate them when I put the numbers of the procession at 8,000. I will only add, that the hon. and learned Member for Nottingham, in my presence on Monday evening, stated the numbers present on Kennington Common as exceeding half a million.

COLONEL SIBTHORP: Sir, I rejoice that I happened to be in the House during this discussion. Most unexpectedly, God knows, I heard that my name was inserted among the signatures to that monstrous petition. I should hope that my conduct through life will be sufficient to satisfy every Member of this House, and everybody out of it, that I should be one of the last to disgrace my family, myself, and the constituency I have had the honour to represent for twenty years, by placing my name to a petition which could not fail to cast a stigma on all who were parties to it. On Monday night, when the hon. and learned Member for Nottingham, addressing me at the door of the House, said, "I am glad all went off peaceably;" I said, "I have only one regret that it did." "Why?" he asked. "Because," I replied, "if you had attempted to come over the bridge you would have got the damnedest hiding mortal man ever received."

MR. HUME: I am extremely sorry to have witnessed this scene. I submit the hon. Member for Cirencester has taken a most unusual and unfair course. No man respects the right of petition more than I do—no one would more readily express an opinion condemnatory of such proceedings as must have taken place in this case; but it would have been more consistent with the dignity of Parliament, and the fairness due to all parties, if notice had been given by the hon. Member for Cirencester that he would call the attention of the House to the circumstances connected with this petition to-morrow or some other day. There was no occasion for the hon. and gallant Member to use an oath. It is unbecoming the character of this House that hon. Members should abuse each other, and say that this or that Member was not worthy of credence. It may be true or not. I place the utmost reliance on the statement of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton; I have no doubt the facts are as he states them; but in order to secure the House from imposition—and I cannot doubt that the grossest imposition has been practised here—it should go forth to the country that every Member is responsible for the petitions he presents. In contradiction to the hon. and learned Member for Nottingham, who has now left his seat, I assert that that is the rule; and every party endeavouring to impose on the House by such improper measures as have evidently been taken in this instance discredits the right of petition, and is liable to the severest reprehension. But while every Member should take the greatest care to ascertain that the petitions he presents are genuine, let us not condescend to call each other bad names by way of vindicating the character of this House.

MR. R. YORKE: With all respect for the former public services of the hon. Member who has just sat down, I am sorry to be obliged to differ from him on this occasion. Without the slightest hesitation I take on myself the odium of saying, that this House and the cause of truth are under eminent obligations to the hon. Member for Cirencester. That hon. Member has undoubtedly used language of strong import; but he was not only provoked but justified in what he has said. Truth in this House should be paramount. I am here to say, that everything the hon. Member for Cirencester has stated with reference to the Member for Nottingham is strictly true. As a matter of course the Member for Nottingham denied those statements.

VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: I rise to order. I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, whether the House will consider it consistent with its dignity to hear hon. Members repudiating and giving decided contradiction to the statements of others, whether present or absent. My own notions of honour may be different from those of other Members; but I am perfectly sure of this, that if a friend of mine were subject to such imputations in this House, who was not here to defend himself, I should feel, if I had not your protection, that this House was no longer a place where I ought to remain.

MR. R. YORKE: I can perfectly understand—nay, more, I can appreciate —the chivalry of the noble Lord. That the Member for Nottingham is not here is his own affair. I am not indulging in personalities. I am only attempting humbly to vindicate the honour and integrity of this House by reference to what should be the integrity and honour of its Members. The forms of Parliament do not allow me to say more than this, that while I have heard the Member for Nottingham assert that he was reprobated by those with whom he was associated for his adherence to monarchy and the existing institutions of this country as opposed to republicanism, six days before there appeared a long elaborate article in a paper called the Northern Star, recommending the substitution of a form of government totally different from that which happily exists in the United Kingdom, and that article was signed "Feargus O'Connor."

MR. LUSHINGTON: The hon. Member for Nottingham said he would explain two points with reference to the House and the Committee, but would explain what referred to himself personally elsewhere. My apprehension is, that from the unfortunate language which has been used, fatal consequences may ensue.

MR. DISRAELI: There seems to be an idea that a more serious meeting on Kennington Common may occur than has already taken place. It were highly ridiculous that this transaction should really terminate with an incident of that character. If any Gentleman in this House makes a statement which is, to say the least of it, grossly inaccurate, if it is the opinion of the House that that inaccuracy has a tendency to produce public mischief, and has been made with that intention —if the hon. Member for Nottingham has sinned in this respect, let the circumstances be placed before us in a proper manner, and I have not the slightest doubt the House will come to a right decision on the subject. At the same time, I must say I heard with pain the tone and language used by the hon. Member for Cirencester. I think it is highly inconvenient that an individual Member should express himself with respect to the conduct of another hon. Member not formally condemned by the House in the manner the hon. Member for Cirencester has done this evening. Still, I am bound to add, that we are indebted to the hon. Member for Cirencester for the pains he has taken on this subject; and, although I cannot vindicate the tone which, from a surplusage of zeal, he has assumed, I think every one must be extremely anxious that the hon. Member for Cirencester should not be imperilled by personal consequences of the kind insinuated. I hope, therefore, that you, Sir, by the exercise of that authority to which all of us, present or absent, are ready at all times to bow, will prevent a conflict of a personal and painful character.

SIR G. GREY: I did not hear the expression attributed to the hon. Member, and I believe that expression did not reach the chair, or the Speaker would have taken notice of it. I quite agree that nothing could be more ridiculous than a personal conflict between two Gentlemen arising out of such circumstances. The hon. Member for Cirencester certainly spoke with some warmth, and might probably have been led away by the feelings of the moment; but, if he gave any ground for personal offence to the hon. Member for Nottingham, he would not refuse to give an explanation, though it certainly had not entered my mind that any personal conflict would emanate from these circumstances.

MR. R. PALMER: I think, as this subject has been mooted, that it is my duty to state what I know respecting it. The hon. Member for Nottingham adverted to three points, stating that with respect to two of those he would offer an explanation to the House, and that with respect to the other, which related to his own personal conduct, he should explain elsewhere. If the Speaker had caught that expression, undoubtedly he would have intimated that some explanation respecting it would be required. I certainly thought, from the manner of the hon. Member for Nottingham in leaving the House, that he intended to take some other notice of the words used by the hon. Member for Cirencester, which this House would be anxious to prevent. When I heard the expressions which fell from the hon. Member for Cirencester, I was not surprised that, under the circumstances of the case, his zeal might have carried him away from the use of what might appear the most discreet language; but it did strike me that the hon. Member was indeed going far when he made the imputation against the hon. Member for Nottingham that he was not entitled to credence. I am quite sure that if the hon. Member for Cirencester did make use of such strong expressions, he will take the opportunity of setting himself right.

LORD J. RUSSELL: In consequence of what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman, to the effect that the hon. Member for Nottingham stated that certain words must be explained elsewhere, I think it necessary to move that "Mr. O'Connor be ordered to attend in his place forthwith."

MR. SPEAKER: Before putting that question, I beg to state to the House that if what fell from the hon. Member for Nottingham had made the same impression on me as it appears to have done on the hon. Member (Mr. R. Palmer), I should have called on the hon. Member for Nottingham to make an explanation, and also on the hon. Member for Cirencester to assure the House that he did not intend any personal reflection. The greatest possible reliance is placed on what falls from a Member of Parliament; and in proportion to the great weight given to the words of an hon. Member, should be his caution that what he states is strictly accurate. The hon. Member for Nottingham, like every other Member, is responsible to the House for the petition he presents containing no disrespectful language, for its coming from the place whence it purports to emanate, and for the genuineness and propriety of the signatures to it. Of course, the hon. Member might be imposed upon with respect to names appended to the petition, as being the names of the parties signing it; but there are some points on which he could not be imposed upon if he took that proper precaution which he owed to the House. The hon. Member for Cirencester, certainly with some warmth, denied and contradicted the statement of the hon. Member for Nottingham; but it did not appear to me that he had exceeded the rules of the House. I hope, however, that the hon. Member for Cirencester will assure the House that be did not intend anything personally offensive. The Motion I have now to put is, that "Mr. O'Connor be ordered to attend in his place forthwith."

MR. CRIPPS: I cannot deny that I did feel most strongly, and that I used every single word that fell from me with perfect sincerity. However, the observations which have just proceeded from the chair have placed me in a difficulty, because the words I used were not intended to offer any insult to the hon. Member for Nottingham, but were wrung from me, they being to the effect that I could place no more credence in his observations. I certainly did use those words, and if that language were unbecoming a gentleman, I should feel bound to make atonement for it. No gentleman who knows me will say that that language arose from want of temper on my part, or that, if I saw reason to make an explanation for the use of it, I should be influenced by a wish to avoid those consequences which are supposed to be due from one hon. Gentleman to another. I should like to know what the opinion of the House generally is, for I have heard some hon. Members say that I used strong language, and others, that the language I used was justifiable under the circumstances. With respect to hostile intentions, I can assure the House that I entertain none towards the hon. Member for Nottingham.

VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH: I hope the hon. Gentleman will explain to the satisfaction of the House the words he has used. I have no doubt that he has stated that which he believes to be perfectly true; but in so doing he has offended the feelings of an hon. Member of this House. I think the same facts might have been conveyed to the House in different and not such strong language. I am anxious to see the deliberations of this House carried on in a manner befitting its character, and so as to set an example to the legislative assemblies of other countries. Let it not go forth, so soon after recent occurrences, that on the consideration of this petition two hon. Members were not sufficiently special constables as to be able to take care of themselves. I hope the hon. Member for Cirencester will be able to explain the language he has used.

SIR DE LACY EVANS: I concur in what has just fallen from the noble Lord. I entirely admit the sincerity of the hon. Member for Cirencester. As a Member of the Committee, he has had to perform his duty in examining this petition; and I am not surprised at the strong feelings he entertained on discovering the character of the signatures to the petition, if signatures they could be called. But I am sure he will admit, on reflection, that it is entirely inconsistent with the good order and courtesy indispensable for the transaction of the business of any legislative assembly, to allow himself to use expressions such as have fallen from him, however strong the grounds might be, and strong they undoubtedly are, for such language. Therefore, not only in regard to the hon. Member for Nottingham, but from respect for this House, I am sure the hon. Member for Cirencester will think it his bounden duty, without further delay, frankly to admit that he was borne away by the feelings of the moment.

MR. CRIPPS: I am afraid that I might have been betrayed into saying something unparliamentary; but I did mean to tell the hon. Member for Nottingham, and I cannot as a gentleman retract what I said, that I could not place further reliance on his words. But if I used language unparliamentary I deeply regret it, and I have no more hesitation in expressing that regret to the hon. Member for Nottingham, who is a Member of this House, than I have in expressing it to the whole House.

MR. SPEAKER: I understand the hon. Member for Cirencester to say that if he used any unparliamentary language he deeply regrets it. I am quite sure that the House will be satisfied with that explanation.

Mr. O'Connor was ordered to attend in his place forthwith.

At a later period of the evening, it was reported to the House that the order had been served on Mr. O'Connor, and he not having obeyed it, he was on the Motion of Sir George Grey ordered to be taken into custody. The hon. Member was afterwards reported in custody, discharged, and attended in his place.

MR. SPEAKER said: Mr. Feargus O'Connor, the House has been given to understand that an expression fell from you before you quitted this House which has led the House to suppose it is your intention to take hostile proceedings against an hon. Member of this House—the Member for Cirencester (Mr. Cripps), in consequence of words spoken by him in debate. I hope you will be able to assure the House that that was not your intention; but it is my duty to inform you that, after you left the House, the hon. Member for Cirencester has already expressed his regret that any expression should have fallen from him which is at all unparliamentary. If the expression used by you had reached me at the time, I should have felt bound at once to interfere; but I think it only due to you to call upon the hon. Member for Cirencester to state in your presence what he has already stated in your absence.

MR. CRIPPS: I wish only to say, that I felt impelled to speak as I did, hearing the conduct of the Committee directly impugned, for we were charged with making representations capable of being contradicted before another Committee. I have taken a deep interest in this subject, and accordingly felt warmly; but, I say again, if I exceeded the line of expression which is due from one Member of Parliament to another, in any respect, though I confess I meant to impugn the conduct of the hon. Member, yet if I exceeded the line of Parliamentary debate in any thing I said, I deeply regret that that should be the case. I can only assure the House that this is the first time in the course of my life I have ever been betrayed into anything unparliamentary, or that I have said a single word which could offend.

MR. F. O'CONNOR: Sir, I beg to exculpate you altogether from the non-performance of your duty, and for this reason. The words I made use of were these:—"I had three duties to perform—one to the House, another to the Committee, and another to myself—that as regarded the House, I hoped they would believe that I should not be a party to any delusion being practised; and, as to the Committee, I reiterated what I before stated, that, so far from casting the slightest imputation upon them, I said, on the contrary, there was none whatever to be cast upon them." That I stated as distinctly as words could state; and, having stated what I considered was my duty to the House and to the Committee, without any further observation, I then left the House. I am proud to say that, having been in this House during tempestuous seasons, and out of this House having led a life which was likely to bring me into collision with others, whilst in this House I have never offered the slightest personal offence to the feelings of any hon. Member of it; but, on the contrary, I have studiously avoided insult. And I think every hon. Member would say I was utterly unworthy of holding a seat here, if I did not in some manner resent the observations which the House seemed to receive with so much willingness. I should not be satisfied with the apology for the unparliamentary words, if it had not been for the concluding words of the hon. Member, who, in a generous manner, having got over the feelings of the moment, said that if he used words which were unbecoming from one to another, he regretted it. I have only to say that I will entirely forget the whole matter; I am not capable of fostering or allowing anything to rankle in my breast. But I have a higher duty to perform to the House, and to the persons who signed the petition I presented. After the expression of feeling on the part of the House, I think it is now my duty to state that I shall abandon my Motion for tomorrow—I shall not found any Motion upon that petition, but shall leave it between the Government and the country —between the Committee and those who signed it. I had no reason to doubt the statements they made to this House, nor was it with my consent, nor shall it ever be, that any delusion has been palmed upon it, or that I shall be a party to any delusion. But there is one thing which I may state fairly, freely, and frankly, and it is this— though it may be the duty of hon. Members closely to examine and nicely scrutinise the signatures of a petition presented to the House, I remember when a petition signed by 3,370,000 persons was presented by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. S. Duncombe), and laid on the floor of the House. He never saw the petition till it was laid on the floor; and it would have been utterly impossible for me to have looked at all to signatures to this petition, so far as to be able to assure the House of their accuracy. I state this to show that I would not willingly, and could not, be cognisant of any deception practised upon the House, and could not, by possibility, avert the charge brought against me. I am glad I did not allow myself to be led away by that excitement to which the hon. Member, as he now states, presumed I had given rise, when he said the veracity of the Committee was impugned. Having performed his duty as a gentleman and a Member of Parliament, I perform mine, and tell him he was in error if he supposed it was my intention to cast any imputation upon the Committee. Having shown that there were no grounds for the attack upon me, and that I meant to cast no imputation upon that Committee, I think I have established a good and satisfactory basis for his gentlemanly retractation of the charge.

Subject at an end.

MR. FAGAN rose to submit the resolution of which he had given notice to the consideration of the House. He assured the House that he should occupy its attention as short a time as he possibly could, consistently with the importance of the subject he had to submit to its consideration, and consistently with the necessity he felt of explaining as clearly as he was capable, the complicated subject on which he had to ask the decision of the House.

The Motion he was about to propose was not a novel one. It had been already submitted to the House four different times by his predecessor in the representation of the city of Cork, his excellent and learned Friend, Serjeant Murphy. It was proposed by that Gentleman in precisely the same words as the Motion now before the House, in 1842, 1843, 1845, and was agreed to by the House in 1844. If mere temporary success were his (Mr. Fagan's) object, he would have come down to the House with a proposition for a Select Committee of Inquiry. But he had sufficient experience in the House to know that these Select Committees were looked upon as the means of shelving a question, and as the most approved mode of relieving the Government from the reponsibility of either accepting or rejecting a question of the description he then submitted to the House. He saw no necessity for such a Select Committee, for all the information which could be obtained by it, was already in the possession of the House, in the reports and records upstairs. There had been already over 200 Select Committees and Commissions of Inquiry, regarding Ireland since the Union; and what had they effected? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Even the Devon Commission, which cost 25,000l., had as yet produced no fruits. It was, therefore, he came forward with a proposition for the immediate abolition of the odious tax called Ministers' Money. He asked for leave to bring in a Bill for that purpose; and the forms of the House required that as the object was the abolition of one tax, and the substitution of another mode of payment, it was necessary that the House should resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House on a day subsequent to that on which the proposition was submitted and adopted. It had been said elsewhere that his Motion was informal. His simple reply was, that he submitted it to the first authority in that House, and that the opinion he received was that it was quite in form. Before he entered on the subject, he was anxious to state why it was that one so short a time a Member of that House, had undertaken to submit so complicated and difficult a question to the House. He had scarcely taken his seat in that House, when he had the honour to present a petition, signed by 16,500 inhabitants of the city of Cork, where the agitation against this Ministers' Money had for years been unremitting. On that occasion he stated it

was his intention to submit a substantive resolution on the subject to the House. During his recess his constituents by a resolution of the town-council, concurred in by those who were always prominent in their hostility to this tax, called on him in his place in Parliament to bring on a Motion for its immediate abolition. It was, therefore, after many postponements over which he had no control, that he now presented himself to the attention of the House. He regretted that some person of more weight and influence—above all, that a member of the Established Church, had not taken his place. He was aware that there were several in that House who concurred with him; and his most anxious wish was that one of them should have undertaken the task. However, it was consolatory to think that it was not a party question—men of all parties in Ireland and of all persuasions were of opinion that this fruitful source of discord should be removed. The very fact of the Member for Dublin University coming forward as the representative of Protestant feeling in Ireland, with an Amendment having for its object the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry was itself sufficient proof how much the Protestants themselves wished for a settlement of the question. The very clergy who were the recipients of the tax were most anxious for some other mode of payment. They felt they were obtaining their incomes from the hard earnings of the poor Catholic occupiers of houses in the most Catholic towns in Ireland; for it was a very curious fact that though the Lord Lieutenant had the power under Act of Parliament of placing the tax on every corporate town in Ireland, still it was confined to the eight following towns, namely, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Drogheda, and Kinsale—while the Protestant towns of Belfast, Armagh, Carrickfergus, Londonderry, and Bandon, were exempt. In Cork, six parishes out of seven were subject to the tax; and the relative numbers in 1833 were in these parishes 65,071 Catholics, and 11,905 Protestants, or nearly six to one. In Dublin there were nineteen parishes subject to the tax, containing, in 1833, 150,730 Catholics, and 55,472 Protestants, or nearly three to one. In Limerick two parishes out of six were subject to the rate, and these contained 14,929 Catholics, and 792 Protestants, or nearly twenty to one. In Waterford six parishes were subject to the rate, and they contained 17,794 Ca-

tholics, and 3,251 Protestants, or over five to one. In Kinsale there were 5,234 Catholics, and 1,070 Protestants, or over five to one. In Clonmel and Drogheda nearly the same proportion existed; and of course, in the census of 1841, these proportions would have been found considerably increased had an account of the numbers of each religion been taken. It was alleged that the reason the Ulster corporate towns were not visited with the tax was that there was there abundant provision in tithes; which was not the case in the southern corporate towns, He admitted the correctness of the statement; but still it did not mitigate the injustice and the inequality of this oppressive tax. This tax called Ministers' Money, was levied under the 17th and 18th Charles II., chap. 7. That Act empowed the Lord Lieutenant and his Privy Council to applot or value the houses in any corporate town having a cure of souls, and on that valuation to raise a tax of one shilling in the pound as provision for the Protestant minister. But the valuation could not exceed 60l. on any house, so that in point of fact where a wealthy Protestant inhabited a house worth 120l. a year, he paid but sixpence in the pound, while his poorer Catholic neighbour living in the old parts of a town paid more than two shillings in the pound on his real valuation, for under the Act there could not be a second valuation of the same house unless it was rebuilt; and as the old parts of the towns, as in Limerick and Cork, were formerly, when the valuations were made, inhabited by the wealthy and respectable, and were now the abodes of the working classes at a much reduced valuation, these poor people paid their Ministers' Money on the old valuation. But there was another more grievous hardship on the poor man under this Act. The churchwarden, who was the minister's collector, had the power of distraint. He was enabled to take away the miserable furniture of the defaulter, and sell it peremptorily and charge heavy costs. From the manuscript returns he had seen in the Journal-office, he found that tome of the clergy in Cork returned the average number of distraints annually as fourteen.—Now if there were but one distraint it would have been one too many; not so much on account of the personal injury inflicted, as from the bitterness and rancour which it engendered. He had in his possession letters from Cork detailing most painfully the sufferings of the poor people from

these districts. These evils were all admitted; but it was maintained by Lord Stanley and others that the tax ought not to be taken off from house property, as it would be making a present of so much to the landlords. In this opinion he did not concur. The tax was so small that if abolished off each house, the rent would not be raised, and consequently the occupier would be the gainer. The entire amount of the tax on Ireland was very trifling. In 1838, when Mr. Hutton represented the city of Dublin, he moved for returns of the monies received annually from this tax. By these returns it appeared that the amount then received came to 11,400l. a year. Since then it had considerably increased from two causes: first, because of new valuations; and next and principally, because of the punctual payment of the tax to enable the Catholic occupier to obtain his miserable municipal franchise under the stinted Irish Municipal Reform Act; and thus it happened that the Catholic since 1839 had been obliged to go under the yoke of the rich Protestant Church Establishment in order to reach at his franchise. If in the municipal form promised by the Government, the necessity of paying this tax was done away with, then in all probability the income of the clergy would be proportionably diminished, and therefore for them the present was the very best time for a settlement. In 1846 certain returns respecting Ministers' Money were moved for. Some of these returns were in the Journal-office—others were not sent in. But from those he had examined he was enabled pretty fairly to judge of the increase since 1838 of Ministers' Money. In Cork it was 50 per cent. In Waterford 10 per cent. In Dublin 33 per cent. In Clonmel 32 per cent. In Drogheda there was no increase. The average increase was 33 per cent; and allowing the towns which had not sent in returns to have had an increase in the tax in the same proportion it would give about 13,000l. a year, as the present amount of the tax. Now that was undoubtedly a small sum. But it was considered most annoying. It was looked upon as a sign of religious ascendancy. It was considered a degradation to be coerced to pay the minister of a religion with which the people had no communication —a minister who in his Lent Lectures, and 1st of November sermons, was, he was grieved to say, often in the habit of abusing the religion of the people from whom he derived his income. This

indignity all parties in Ireland, though themselves free from the tax, felt painfully, and it became the duty of Parliament to at once remove it. In 1837, to avoid collision with 400,000 men who were resisting the payment of tithes—to prevent the shedding of blood, that question was settled. Would the House of Commons allow it to be said that it yielded then to its fear, but that now because it was a few towns were calling for relief, that as there was nothing to be dreaded, their demand should be refused. He trusted sincerely, in the present state of Ireland, that such would not be the case. This tax was from the earliest period after the Act of Charles, the subject of complaint. In proof of this he would read to the House a very curious document, a copy of which he had obtained from the British Museum. It was an Act of Parliament, and yet not to be found in the statutes of the realm. It was passed in 1689 by the Parliament summoned by James II. in Dublin. It recited the provisions of the Statute of Charles, and then declared—

"That whereas the duties and payments under said Act appear to be a new imposition, and are become very grievous and oppressive to the inhabitants of cities and towns corporate within this kingdom, be it therefore enacted, that so much of the said Act as extended to the granting, imposing, or securing the duties and payments of 12 pence in the pound aforesaid, be and is hereby repealed."

This tax had always been felt as a grievous impost by the people of Ireland; yet from the days of James up to 1842 it was never submitted to the consideration of Parliament. As he had before stated, Serjeant Murphy brought before the House the question in 1842–43–44 and 1845; and the Ministers of those days—Lord Elliot, Mr. Stanley, Sir Thomas Freemantle—one and all—admitted it was a great grievance, and expressed their anxiety for its abolition. Mr. Stanley went so far as to say that he hoped before the then Session had concluded to be able to introduce some measure on the subject. The great, the only difficulty was the discovery of a substitute. Serjeant Murphy did not think it his duty to find a substitute. He held most truly that as the Government admitted the existence of the grievance, it was their duty to abolish the tax, and find themselves a substitute. But he had seen enough to be convinced that to ensure success, it was necessary for him to endeavour to find the substitute. The Church Temporalities Act suggested to him where the substitute could be found. That Act was passed for the purpose of

abolishing church-cess. Now, church-cess, though larger in amount than Ministers' Money, was not so unequal or unjust a tax. It was not limited to a few towns—neither was the mode of its assessment so unfair; and yet to get rid of it, ten bishoprics were suppressed—the incomes of the clergy were taxed, and benefices were suspended. He was anxious to read to the House two extracts from the speech of the present Lord Stanley on the debate on the Church Temporalities Act, and also an extract from the report which he drew up, on which that Act was framed— because these extracts were most applicable to the more odious tax of Ministers' Money. In the debate Mr. Stanley says—

"It was the general opinion that for the sake of the tranquillity and good order of the country, a different distribution of church property should be made, for let it be understood that the mode in which the money was collected in many cases, was more annoying to the Catholics than the mere burthen of the amount collected."

Again he says—

"The measure which the Government submitted was one of relief from a burthen which was found oppressive. It was one which the best friends of the Church thought would be not only a relief to the great mass of the people of Ireland, but also a great advantage to the Church itself. It was, he repeated, a practical measure—a measure of conciliation which he hoped would prove, not only one which would unite Protestants and Catholics in bonds of closer union, but would serve more closely to unite England and Ireland."

In the report he thus writes:—

"The levy of church-cess for the building and repair of churches and for the due celebration of divine worship, is a tax trifling in amount, but peculiarly difficult of collection— peculiarly obnoxious to the feelings, not only of Roman Catholics, but also of a great proportion of the Protestants of Ireland, and of which the advantages of the Established Church are far more than counterbalanced by the odium attending its enforcement."

Such were the opinions of Lord Stanley regarding church-cess, and they certainly applied with far more force to Ministers' Money. There were three substitutes suggested to his mind by the Church Temporalities Act. Under that Act the incomes of clergy and bishops were subject to a tax after avoidance by death or removal. At present no income under 300l. a year was subject to the tax, and at 300l. it was but 2½ per cent. When Lord Althorp introduced the Bill in the Commons, he made incomes of 200l. subject to the tax, and placed 5 per cent on it as the lowest rate. A small additional rate could be very fairly placed on these livings and bishoprics to meet the Ministers' Money.

There were 600 benefices ranging from 300l. to 800l. a year—say, averaging 500l. a year; if 2 per cent was put on them it would bring in 6,000l. a year. There were seventy-five livings from 800l. to 1,000l., which at 3 per cent tax would yield 1,800l. a year. There were seventy-four livings at from 1,000l. to 1,500l. a year, which, at 4 per cent, would give 2,960l. There were ten at from 1,500l. to 2,800l. a year, which at 5 per cent gave 1,000l. The incomes of the bishops which were not suppressed may be set down at 60,000l., which at 5 per cent would yield 15,000l., making together 26,760l. a year, which would be double what was required for a. substitute for Ministers' Money. The only objection to this was, that as the tax could not be payable until the avoidance of the livings, it could not come into immediate operation. Again, there were in Ireland 151 benefices without any Protestant—193 with less than ten, 194 with less than twenty, making in all 543. Now of these, 100 dignities without cure of souls, and 168 benefices where divine service was not performed for three years before 1833, were now under operation of the Temporalities Act, leaving 275 benefices, which ought to be also suspended when they became void. Now, bearing in mind that there were in Ireland but 200 livings, not including perpetual curacies, under 200l. a year, it was not too much to rate these livings at 150l. a year, making together 41,250l., from which deduct 27,500l. for curates in place of beneficed clergy at salaries of 100l. a year each, this would leave 13,750l. for Ministers' Money. But here again this plan was defective, because it could not come into immediate operation. He would now come to the substitute which he proposed in the Bill he had prepared—this substitute was suggested to him by the 73rd section of the Act, which clearly indicated that all assessments for Church purposes, including the payment, should be abolished. It enacted—

"That all parishes and places where by virtue of any law, statute, or custom, provision may heretofore have been made by vestry or other assessment for the maintenance of any curate, lecturer, clerk, or other minister, or assistant in the celebration of divine service—such provision by vestry or other assessment, shall, from and after the passing of this Act wholly cease and determine, and it shall and may be lawful for said Commissioners under said Act, by and out of the proceeds of said annual tax and other funds aforesaid by this Act vested in them, to provide for all such purposes," &. &.

This clause would seem clearly to indicate that the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners if sufficient should be appropriated to pay the ministers who now received their incomes from assessment. Lord Campbell, so late as 1846, in presenting a petition from Cork to the House of Lords, expressed his surprise that this Ministers' Money was not with the church-cess included in the Church Temporalities Act. His conviction was, that it was so intended, but was overlooked; and his object was to rectify that error, as he was quite satisfied there were ample funds for the purpose at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Church Temporalities Act constituting the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was passed in 1833. That was fourteen years ago. Their funds were derived from the following sources: suppressed bishoprics, suspended benefices where there was not divine service performed for three years before 1833, suspended prebendaries and dignities not having cure of souls, and disappropriated tithes from benefices over 800l. a year; an annual tax upon benefices of over 300l. a year, and on bishops' sees; the fund from the sale of perpetuities, and other items to which it was unnecessary then to allude. Now the principle, as regards the revenues from suspended benefices, dignities, and the annual tax was, that the revenue did not accrue until avoidance, since 1833, by death or removal. It was evident that the revenues from these sources at the beginning were very low; for instance, in 1835 the annual tax came but to 7l. 5s. 7d., while in 1846 it came to 9,323l.; and in 1837 the first receipt from suspended benefices came to but 1,747l., and in 1846 to 20,783l. Therefore, after the lapse of so many years the avoidances must be every year increasing until all are avoided. On the other hand, the expenditure is comparatively stationary. Now, bearing all this in mind he would proceed to show a surplus in the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners applicable as a substitute for Ministers' Money. He would take the year 1846—for the receipts in 1847 were not a fair criterion by which to judge, owing to the difficulty of getting in their income, by reason, as the Commissioners say, of the prevailing distress. The amount received from suppressed bishoprics, to August 1846, came to 42,770l. Since then the bishopric of Kildare became vacant, which in 1833 was valued at 6,061l.; and the revenues of the deanery of Christ

Church had come in to the Commissioners. This, in 1833, was estimated at 5,314l. The payment now received from the bishops of Derry, comes to 4,160l., making altogether 58,305l., as the present incomes from these bishops' sees. After the death of the Archbishop of Armagh, it will be increased by 4,500l.; after the Bishop of Derry's, 2,000l., and Bishop of Clogher's, 8,968l., making 15,168l. future increase under that head, but not to be taken into account now. The receipts from suspended benefices in 1846, came to 20,782l. But as the receipts in 1845 were but 10,397l., he supposed a large sum was due in arrears of the former years. He would therefore estimate the regular income in 1846, at least 15,000l. Now there are in all but 168 benefices where there was not divine service for three years previous in 1833; of these, but forty-one have yet been avoided, leaving 127 to be yet voided. The annual average increases since 1834 have been four. Take each voided benefice at 100l. a year. That would give 400l. a year increase on that item. There were 100 dignities and prebends without cure of souls. Of these 45 are already voided. The annual voidances are four: set down each at 150l., which is a low estimate, when it is recollected that the whole 100 was estimated in 1833 at 26,000l., or 260l. each. That will give 600l. increase, or 1,000l. on both items; which for two years, from 1846 to 1848, would make 2,000l. increase on 15,000l.; that is, 17,000l. being the present income from that source. When all the benefices will be suspended, the revenue will come to 12,300l, and from dignities and prebends to 26,000l.; making both together 38,300l., instead of the present 17,000l. The tax on benefices and bishoprics in 1846 came to 9,323. There are 760 benefices liable to the tax—of these 350 are now paying it, and 410 are yet to pay—about 30 a year are the annual avoidances; and suppose each worth 5,000l. a year—which is not much when it is considered that these benefices range from 300l. to 2,800l. a year—that would give 15,000l. a year voided, which, at 5 per cent tax, would be 750l. a year increase, or 1,500l. for the two years, which added to 9,323l. makes 10,823l., the present income from the annual tax. The perpetuity fund amounted in 1847 to 14,913l. The smallest sum ever received in the was year 11,373l. There has been 514,152l. already received. The Commissioners in 1836 valued the whole

at 1,200,000l., leaving 688,825l. to be yet disposed of. The annual number of purchasers, of late years, was 40. It will be necessary to give a stimulus to induce purchasers. The present bonus of 4 per cent is not sufficient inducement to convert the present leases into perpetuities. He would in his Bill give 7 per cent bonus, and he would allow the purchaser to pay by annual instalments of 10 per cent, subject to 4 per cent interest. By that means purchasers would become more numerous. He would, therefore, set down the annual receipt from the perpetuity fund at 15,000l. The interest on the perpetuity mortgages may be set down at 2,500l., and private subscriptions for enlarging and building churches at one-fifth the whole expenditure, or 2,400l. That would make

106,028l. as the annual permanent revenue of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The expenditure was as follows: For building and enlarging churches he set down 12,000l. a year: in 1843 this item came to but 9,656l.; in 1844, to 11,468l.; in 1845, to 8,900l.; in 1846, to 10,500l.; and in 1847, to 9,300l. Repairs of churches he would set down at 20,000l.: in 1844 this item came to 15,608l. for repairing 1,000 churches; in 1845, to 16,458l.; in 1846, to 18,469l., when three-fourths of the churches in Ireland were repaired; and in 1847, to 13,376. For divine service the annual expense he would set down at the highest it ever came to, 35,000l. a year. The payment to curates in 1847 came to 8,974l.: he would estimate it at 10,000l. a year. These four items he set down at sums much higher than they ever before reached. The next item he would reduce from 6,500l. to 4,515l.: he meant salaries. There were now three paid Commissioners at 1,000l. a year. He proposed that in future there should be but one at a salary of 1,500l. When he considered that there were architects to look after the churches at the cost of 3,500l. a year; solicitors to attend to the law, and agents, at the cost of 1,500l. a year, to look after the estates —besides a secretary, and treasurer, and seventeen clerks—he felt convinced that one paid Commissioner was quite sufficient. This, with other trifling reductions, would bring this item of expenditure down to 4,515l. There would then be law expenses 1,500l. a year, and incidentals 1,500l. a year, making the whole annual expenditure 84,515l., which taken from the income, 106,028l., leaves 21,513l. to

13,000l. Ministers' Money, with a surplus of 8,513l. to meet errors of contingencies. Now, it is said, that notwithstanding this, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners state they have no funds. This is quite true, for they owe 40,000l. to the Government, being the balance of 100,000l. they borrowed under a special Act of Parliament at a time when their funds were low. Of this 100,000l. they repaid 30,000l. in one year, and for the last three years paid 10,000l. a year. Now, he would call on the Government not to call in this money for ten years, the Commissioners paying interest for it. At the end of that time they would have ample funds to enable them to repay the capital. The 66th Section of the Church Temporalities Act gives up any money lent by Government to the Board of First Fruits, provided the money had been expended in repairing churches. A greater part of the million loan to the clergy was forgiven. Would it then be too much to ask Government not now to enforce this debt of 40,000l., and not allow it to stand in the way of a settlement of the question? Such was his substitute, and his plan. He would simply ask of the House permission to bring in his Bill and allow it to be read a first time. There could be no fair objection to this, for the grievance was admitted, and it was simply a question of detail. If his details were not correct, then, on the second reading, let his Bill be thrown out. He was sure he might appeal for support to those who were anxious to allay all religious rancour in Ireland. He would appeal for support to those who maintained that the property of the Church should be appropriated alone to Church purposes. He would, with confidence, appeal for support to those who took so distinguished a part in the debates on the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Church to national purposes —particularly, were he in his place, would he appeal for support to the right hon. Secretary for the Admiralty, whose name was venerated in Ireland because of the prominent part he took in those debates. He would appeal for support to the noble Lord Her Majesty's First Minister, whose speeches on the Church question in 1836 and 1847 were so replete with eloquence and patriotism —who, in 1846, declared that he accepted office solely in the hope of carrying out his plans for the amelioration of Ireland. He appealed to him especially at this particular time, for he recollected his memorable saying in 1836—

"That the first cannon shot fired in anger in Europe would be a signal of justice to Ireland." That cannon shot had been fired, and already the Treaty of Vienna is torn to fritters, and Ireland is not in a state to be trifled with. Above all, and before all, he appealed to the House of Commons that in 1834 pledged itself before the Sovereign to redress the real and proven grievances of Ireland. The demand he made was trifling; but still the granting of it would show a disposition to do justice; and though they heard, on all sides, that there was much disaffection in Ireland, still he felt convinced, if this trifling boon was granted, it would tend much to allay the feelings of the people, for it would be the first indication of a desire to do justice to that country.

SIR W. SOMERVILLE said, his hon. Friend had at the commencement of his speech apologised for his taking up the question, not being a member of the Established Church; but he was sure that his hon. Friend had not said one word which could give the slightest offence to any member of the Established Church. This subject had been frequently discussed in the House. Many of his predecessors in office had been anxious to abolish this tax, among whom he might notice Lord Stanley, Lord St. Germans, and the noble Lord the Member for Falkirk (Lord Lincoln); but one and all of them had failed in finding a substitute for it. His hon. Friend had also correctly stated that the clergymen of the Established Church were themselves anxious for a change in the law; but none of these plans seemed to him to provide a satisfactory settlement, because they must take care, in settling this question, that they did not confer a boon upon the rich owners of property, while the poor occupiers were not in the least relieved. He was not aware, till lately, that when in office, Lord St. Germans had obtained various returns upon this subject, relating to the property that was rated, and the property that was not; the amount levied on certain houses, together with those districts of towns that were subject to the tax, and those that were not. These returns were not yet printed; but he believed that they would very speedily be laid before the House. Even under these circumstances, therefore, he thought he might ask his hon. Friend to pause, and not press his Motion to a division, because it would not tend to advance his object. But, besides this, there were two hon. Gentle- men, the hon. Member for the University of Dublin, and his hon. Friend the Member for the city of Dublin, who had both of them notices on this subject—the first in the shape of an Amendment; and the other, proposing a Select Committee to inquire into the subject. As to the Amendment of the hon. Member for the University of Dublin, he thought it did not go quite far enough; but he was willing to assent to the Motion for a Select Committee; and, therefore, he was the more inclined to ask his hon. Friend to withdraw his Motion. If the Select Committee was agreed to, far from wishing to shelve the question, he would enter upon the inquiry with the most sincere desire to bring the subject to a satisfactory conclusion.

MR. GEORGE A. HAMILTON was glad the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland had preceded him in the debate; for the observations the right hon. Baronet had made in reference to the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork, would render it unnecessary for him to trouble the House with any lengthened argument in opposition to that Motion. He was quite ready to admit that the present state of the law respecting Ministers' Money in Ireland was unsatisfactory, and required amendment; this had been admitted in all previous debates which he recollected on this subject. It had been so stated by almost every Secretary, as the right hon. Baronet the present Secretary had remarked; and the necessity of amending the law had also on these occasions been admitted by those who more particularly represented the clergy in that House. The clergy also themselves, in those towns where the Ministers' Money formed their income, were equally desirous that it should be placed on a different and more satisfactory footing. It was on this account that he himself proposed that a Committee of Inquiry should be appointed. But when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork brought forward a Motion aiming at the abolition of Ministers' Money, involving, therefore, the appropriation principle— withdrawing their support from the town clergy, without providing an equivalent, except such an equivalent as would trench upon the other property of the Church—it was scarcely necessary for him to say he must offer to that Motion his most strenuous opposition. He (Mr. Hamilton) could not see on what grounds of justice the abolition of Ministers' Money could be urged. It was an ancient charge—so old

as the reign of Charles II.—on certain towns. Subject to that charge houses had been built and purchased, and all the arrangements of property made; and the effect of abolishing it would be to raise the rent of those houses to the extent of the present charge, and thereby give a boon and benefit to the owners, to which he could see no reason for considering them entitled. The points in which the law was defective, and which, he thought, required inquiry, were these:—The valuations, as stated by the Member for Cork, were old and imperfect. Some of them, he believed, were more than a century old. In the progress of time the value of houses had materially altered; parts of those towns where formerly houses were fashionable and valuable had fallen into decay, and the value of houses had become deteriorated: other parts, formerly of little value, had risen in value, and yet the valuation for Ministers' Money remained the same. This, no doubt, was unjust and unequal. The mode of recovery also, the only mode which the clergyman possessed by law, was by distress of the occupier's goods. This, also, he thought most objectionable; and to those points—the more equal adjustment of the charge, and the means of its recovery—he was most willing that the inquiry should be directed. Now, he must first call the attention of the House to the case of the clergy in those towns where Ministers' Money existed. It could not be said that the amount was unnecessary. It constituted, in fact, nearly the whole of the income of the clergy in some towns. The whole amount of Ministers' Money in Ireland, when the last returns were made, being 11,500l. (it may have been somewhat increased since, as stated by the hon. Member for Cork), 8,238l. was in Dublin, and 1,591l. in Cork. The question, therefore, may be taken as referring to Dublin and Cork. In Dublin there were nineteen benefices receiving Ministers' Money; of these nineteen, the net income was 9,005l., and of this 9,000l. no less than 8,328l. was made up by Ministers' Money. In Cork there were seven benefices similarly circumstanced. The net income of those seven benefices was 2,614l., of which 1,591l. was made of Ministers' Money; so that it was obvious that the tax proposed to be abolished formed the income of the clergy in those towns. He need scarcely remark, that the duties of the clergy in those towns were most onerous, laborious, and extensive.

One of them, the Archdeacon of Cork, thus expressed himself in a letter to him:—

"In my own parish, containing 2,500 Protestants, I have two curates unceasingly and zealously employed in a poor and declining district, in addition to my own services; and but that it forms a part of the corps of the archdeaconry, the income would not support a single clergyman. Two of the city clergymen are obliged, from the poverty of the clergyman's income, to have curates paid by the Curates' Society."

He had other letters to the same effect. But the hon. Member proposed a substitute, and he had gone into a long statement with regard to the property of the Established Church. He would not follow the hon. Member through that statement at present —a fitter opportunity would be afforded by the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose, of which he had given notice; but he could assure the hon. Member for Cork, as far as he had been able to collect his figures, he was quite mistaken in the estimate he had made of the amount of that property. But the hon. Member had proposed, that the clergy in those towns should be paid out of the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and he had intimated that they had, or were likely soon to have, a large surplus at their command. Now, in the first place, he must remind the House, that even if there were a surplus, it is already appropriated by the Church Temporalities Act to other purposes. The 63rd section of that Act provides that the funds of the Commissioners shall be applied, in the first instance, to the providing things necessary for divine service; the payment of clerks and sextons, and the building and repairing of churches. And the 77th section enacts, that any surplus shall be applied, first, in building churches or chapels when one-fifth is subscribed by inhabitants; secondly, in building glebe-houses; and, thirdly, in augmenting benefices where necessary—the surplus, therefore, if there was a surplus, is expressly appropriated. The hon. Member had endeavoured to show that there was or might soon be a surplus. But what was the language of the Commissioners themselves? Why, in their very last report, dated August, 1847, they state this—

"The Commissioners think it right to observe, that they have before them a great number of applications for rebuilding, enlarging, &., many of which are of a very pressing nature, and which they are unable to attend to from the present state of their funds."

They further state that large loans had

been raised by private subscriptions, and that four new churches had been erected during the year, altogether by private means. And in the correspondence which took place between the Lord Lieutenant and the Commissioners, two or three years ago, the Commissioners thus express themselves. They state—

"That they are not able as yet to retain any portion of the sums arising from perpetuity sales as capital, having expended the entire in supplying the deficiencies of their income from other sources."

They state, also, that the episcopal members of the Board have stated that applications are kept back, because it is notorious that the state of the finances of the Commissioners hold out no prospect of success, except in pressing cases, and that the applications presented to the Board for the last five years, fall very short of an adequate representation of the wants of the Church in such matters: that the applications of this nature before the Board amount to 136,992l., out of which they propose an outlay of only 26,836l. Now, with regard to the pressing nature of these applications, he was unwilling to weary the House with details; but if any hon. Member would just look to the list and nature of the cases set forth in the appendix to that correspondence, he was sure it would be admitted that the cases were such as to require aid, if funds were available for the purpose. Take the case that stood first on the list, Ballymore, in Armagh:—

"The memorial states that the church is supposed to seat about 450, Protestant population being 3,135—large subscriptions offered."

Kilmore:—

"The church holds at present 110 persons conveniently, while the congregation is upwards of 700; also, in 1846, that the congregation being pent up in the church, could endure it no longer, and were determined to avail themselves of two Dissenting houses near the church."

Abbeyleix:—

" The church requires enlargement; the Protestant population having increased, since the last Protestant census, from 1,008 to at least 1,300—subscriptions to the amount of 400l. tendered."

These were only specimens of the demands on the funds of the Commissioners, which they were unable to answer. The right hon. Baronet opposite had suggested, with regard to the Amendment which he had to move, that it was somewhat restricted in its wording. He had no objection to extend it further, and would readily consider any additional words which the right hon. Baronet might propose, provided, however,

that the words should not imply the abolition of Ministers' Money, or the providing a substitute for it out of the funds of the Established Church; for although he was willing and anxious that any grievance or injustice in the present mode of assessing or levying Minsters' Money should be remedied, he could not consent to any inquiry which implied either its abolition or an appropriation of any part of the Church property from its present purposes. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon the state and operation of the Laws respecting Ministers' Money in Ireland, and to report whether any and what amendments in those Laws would be expedient."

MR. M. POWER appealed to the House whether, for the sake of the paltry sum of 12,000l. or 13,000l. a year, it was politic or expedient to keep up the heartburnings which prevailed on this subject in Ireland? They all lamented the bitter feelings, the hostile encounters, and even bloodshed, which had distracted and disgraced Ireland for so many centuries; and this unhappy state of things had been produced by nothing so much as by the exaction of those taxes and tithes, which were a galling remnant of foreign conquest, and which hourly reminded the people of their degraded state. Besides irritating the people, these exactions placed the clergy in a false position by exhibiting them as ministers of Mammon in place of ministers of Christ. He hoped, then, that means would be taken to remove this grievance. His hon. Friend had pointed out a substitute; but it would have been sufficient for him to have pointed out the injustice and the inexpediency of the tax, and to have left the Government to find out a substitute for it if they chose. Considering the immense revenues of the Established Church—amounting (according to a statement made by Mr. Ward, in 1834), to 650,753l., or to 18s. a head for every Protestant in Ireland—it would be hard indeed if some substitute for this petty tax could not be easily found. The Catholic Church in Ireland afforded an excellent example of the efficiency of the voluntary principle of supporting religion; and was it not preposterous for a people who made such exertions for the support of a religion which they believed to be true, to be compelled at the same time to support a Church whose doctrines they believed to be erroneous?

VISCOUNT BERNARD doubted whether the contributions of the Roman Catholics of Ireland to the support of their Church were of the voluntary nature which the hon. Gentleman who spoke last seemed to suppose. With regard to the question before the House, he conceived that the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for the University was one which would be likely to effect a satisfactory arrangement. if they abolished Ministers' Money, they would leave a great body of the most respectable clergy of Ireland totally unprovided for. But it was proposed to apply the funds of the Established Church in lieu thereof; whereas it was notorious those funds were wholly inadequate to the support of the Protestant Church herself. ["Oh, oh!"] Did the hon. Member for Kerry deny that fact? Did he deny that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had stated to Lord Heytesbury that they had not funds sufficient to provide for the wants of the Protestant Church? [Mr. MORGAN J. 0'CONNELL : No, no!] If he doubted that statement, let the hon. Member refer to the report. [The noble Lord here read an extract from the report in confirmation of his assertion.] He hoped that, instead of further continuing this discussion, they might be allowed to have a Committee, where the subject might be fully and fairly considered. If they removed the tax from the occupier, they would be simply making a present of it to the owner of the property. When Ministers' Money was first instituted, there were no Roman Catholics resident in those corporate towns, and every acre of ground that had been purchased, and every house built, was so purchased and so built with the knowledge that the tax must be paid. His belief was, that there was something behind the scenes—that it was not merely the ministers, not merely the poor, that were to be the gainers. As he had already observed, he was perfectly ready to agree to a Motion for referring the subject to a Select Committee; but if it was to be referred to such a Committee: he consented to it on the sole understanding that no pledge, direct or indirect, way given for touching the revenues of the Irish Church. He valued that Church, because he believed that it was one of the most powerful links existing for the preservation of the Union of the two countries. ["Hear!"] The hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) said "Hear;" but he could tell the hen Member that he supported that Church upon still higher grounds; he believed, in his conscience, that her doctrines were true; and that, if her downfall were accomplished, it would be with the view of establishing the Roman Catholic Church in her place. Entertaining these opinions, and being also of opinion that the Established Church of Ireland was the only security for the maintenance of civil and religious liberty in that country, he should give his opposition to the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork.

MR. HUME could not agree with the opinions or sentiments of the noble Lord who had just spoken. He most deliberately declared his opinion that but for the Protestant Church in Ireland, maintained against the wishes of the majority of the people, that country would not be in her present state of misery and destitution. He believed that Church to have been the principal cause of her evils, and that no peace or order could be expected in Ireland till it had ceased to exist. That time, although he might not live to see it, would soon arrive. They had heard statements to the effect that distresses had been made on the miserable effects of the poor, and that their very beds and blankets had been taken to pay this money. So great were these evils, that the clergy themselves objected to this rate. It was certain the people did so; and if the statement as to the clergy were true, there was no reason why this impost should be continued, opposed as it was to the wishes of both parties. If the sentiments of the noble Lord were to be taken as the type of the feeling of his class in Ireland, he (Mr. Hume) should indeed despair of that country. This was an English and a Scotch, as well as an Irish question; and the people would soon find out the folly and expense of sending 30,000 or 40,000 bayonets to Ireland to maintain the Protestant Church Establishment. Ministers were asking for measures of coercion for Ireland; but it would be well to consider in how far they were themselves the cause of agitation and disturbance there, by refusing to remove just grounds of complaint. He did not consider a Committee necessary, for the House was fully informed of the nature of the evils complained of; and he trusted to hear the Government say that they would in this matter make their first peace-offering to Ireland—that they would at once remove those evils, and declare their intention to devote the surplus revenues of the Church to the education and interests of the people.

SIR G. GREY was afraid, from the tone of the preceding speaker, that the House would be led away into a discussion foreign to the question before them. He admitted there were practical grievances respecting Ministers' Money, for which a remedy should be found; more particularly as those who received as well as those who paid the tax were anxious for its modification or removal. In 1844 a similar Motion came before the House, when it was admitted that the subject deserved the consideration of Government; and Lord Stanley expressed a hope that the Government would be able to remedy the evils of the tax. That, however, they had not been able to do, and he was afraid the present Government would not be more successful. The hon. Member for the University of Dublin asked for inquiry as well as the hon. Member for Cork; and he (Sir G. Grey) did not think there was any substantial objection to its institution. He thought the hon. Member for the University of Dublin might submit to the addition of a few words to his Amendment, which would make it agreeable to the hon. Member for Cork.

MR. REYNOLDS objected to the Ministers' Money, because the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians, and others of the various creeds into which our common Christianity was split, were compelled by law to pay for and support a religion from which they dissented; besides which, there was gross inequality in the tax. In the city of Dublin it operated most injuriously. The total annual amount of Ministers' Money in Ireland was 15,000l.; and he asked whether it was worth while to maintain an impost so unjust and so insulting to the generality of Irishmen? No man who was in arrear of this Ministers' Money could enjoy the municipal franchise; and last year Mr. Alderman Butt lost his seat in the town-council in consequence of being in arrear.

MR. MONSELL trusted, that his hon. Friend the Member for the city of Cork would persist in his Motion, and take the sense of the House upon it. He could not see how there could be any objection to going into the proposed inquiry, when the injustice complained of was distinctly admitted.

MR. NAPIER said, he wished to bring back the attention of the House to the real question on which they were to decide, and that was, whether this portion of the Church property was to be abolished in toto, or rather transferred from the

Church; or whether an inquiry should be made by a Select Committee into its details, so as to rectify any inequality of pressure in its assessment? The question had been discussed by the Gentlemen opposite on the general policy of supporting the Church Establishment; on that he was prepared to join issue with them. If the union between the two countries was to be maintained, the preservation of the rights of the Church was essential. This was not his own opinion merely, it was the opinion of an eminent Roman Catholic gentleman of great influence. After reading the statement of Mr. Blake, that the Church was the main bond of union between England and Ireland, he;said that, although the hon. Member for Montrose had denounced the Church in no measured terms, he would venture to assure him, that wherever its real influence was felt in Ireland, it was accompanied by all the temporal advantages of prosperity, industry, and social order. Now, what was the nature of the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork? Why, it was to extinguish this portion of Church property which was originally a charge on the property of Protestants; for when it was created, the property charged by it was exclusively held by Protestants. Whoever, therefore, enjoyed that property, took it subject to this charge, which was not a charge on the person, but on the property; and unless a Roman Catholic tenant should not pay rent to a Protestant landlord, or a Roman Catholic debtor should be excused from paying a Protestant creditor, no reason could be suggested for the proposed abolition. As to the inequality of the assessment, or any matter connected with the levying of the tax, the Amendment of his hon. Colleague fairly provided that it should be remedied; yet this was the only argument of the hon. Member for Limerick in favour of abolition. As to the analogy of the vestry-cess, that was a personal tax, and therefore afforded no reason in favour of abolition. Who would be benefited by abolition? Not the occupier, because the amount of rent would depend on the amount of other charges; and why should the owner, who obtained the property subject to the charges, deprive the Church of property given to it by the law? The Protestants of Ireland merely asked that the property of their Church should not be confiscated—it was guaranteed by the Act of Union, and by the Act of Emancipation, and that embodied in the form of oath, and re-echoed

in all the enactments. He trusted, a body of English Gentlemen, such as he saw around him, would never consent to any act of spoliation of any part of the property of the United Church of England and Ireland.

MR. SHEIL made great allowance for the vehemence of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just addressed the House, having come hot and reeking from the hustings of the University of Dublin; but the hon. Gentleman would forgive him for telling him that many who had heard him would lament the resignation of the right hon. Frederick Shaw. The hon. Gentleman was mistaken in supposing that the proposition made to-night for the abolition of Ministers' Money involved the abolition of any part of the Church property. It did not. It was not proposed by any man in that House to deprive a single Protestant clergyman, performing duties in the respective towns of Ireland charged with Ministers' Money, of a single shilling of his revenue. Nay, more, it was not proposed that the successors of the actual incumbents should be deprived of their revenue, because the clergy in the great towns of Ireland were not sinecurists; they had real duties to perform; and he was not acquainted with a single Roman Catholic gentleman who held that a Protestant clergyman ought not to be paid in a manner most fully commensurate with the functions he had to discharge. The real question to be considered was, whether a most obnoxious tax—admitted to be so on all hands—might not be abolished consistently with the principles preferred by hon. Members on the other side of the House. In his judgment the Ecclesiastical Fund in the hands of the Commissioners was fully adequate to discharge every purpose to which it had been applied, and might be used in the same way as it was employed for the purpose of removing church-cess, an impost of the most grievous and galling kind. By the Church Temporalities Act it was provided that church-cess should be abolished, yet that impost was not of so obnoxious a character as this, it being a charge at common law, whereas this was statutary. The Act provided that churches should be built, small livings augmented, and diocesan schoolmasters supplied with the means of livelihood, and that without trenching on church property. Could it possibly be maintained that they would be alienating church property, when they proposed to apply to an ecclesiastical purpose the same fund which was used for other ecclesiastical purposes? He did not coincide with his right hon. Friend the Secretary for Ireland, when he said he did not believe the Ecclesiastical Fund could be used in substitution for this impost. [Sir W. SOMERVILLE: I never said anything of the kind.] He was glad to find he was mistaken. He had the accounts before him, and they furnished this statement. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were authorised by Act of Parliament to borrow 100,000l. from the Board of Works; that the debt had been reduced to 40,000l.; last year they paid 10,000l. in liquidation of that debt. What, then, was it requisite to do? To leave the debt of 40,000l. standing, to pay the interest of that at 5 per cent, and to abolish Ministers' Money until a new fund should arise. But there was a new fund as it was. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners stated in their last report that upon the death of the present Bishop of Clogher their funds would be augmented by the sum of 8,860l. a year. On the death of the Bishop of Clogher they would come into the receipt of 8,860l. a year. And why should they not then be able to replenish the coffers of the Established Church? If this was practica1ble, why should the abolition of so odious an impost be stigmatised as robbery of the Established Church? The Church Temporalities Act might be amended, and ought to be amended. Was the House, was the country, aware that by the Church Temporalities Act larger revenues were secured to the bishops of Ireland than to the bishops of England? It was understood that the bishops of England were to receive no more than 5,000l. a year. But how were the Irish prelates paid? Take the case of the Archbishop of Armagh. Before the acting of the Act in question, his revenue was 16,000l. a year. It had been reduced by the Act, but it still amounted to as large a sum as 12,000l. That, to be sure, was the case of an archbishop. But take the case of the Bishop of Derry. When that prelate was appointed, it was stipulated that he should acquiesce in any terms which the Government might think fit to propose. The condition they imposed was, that he should pay 4,000l. a year into the Ecclesiastical Fund. The balance, however, was worthy of acceptance. The splendid residue amounted to 8,000l. a year, and that sum was secured to him and to his successor. Not one shilling would he (Mr. Sheil) take from that meritorious Christian bishop; but he was most decidedly of opinion that the revenue of his successor ought to be curtailed; and so it should be with all the Irish bishoprics. The revenues of the Irish bishops exceeded those of the English. Was he to be told that that anomaly ought to continue? Assuredly it ought not. But to go back to the tax. There was a remarkable historical fact connected with it, which showed how obnoxious and detestable it had ever been considered. The circumstance had been already referred to by the hon. Member for Cork; but as the House was thin at the time, he would make no apology for repeating the allusion. The Catholic Parliament of James II., following the example of the Protestant Parliament that had gone before it, seized the whole of the Church property for Catholic purposes. The property of the Protestant Church was transferred to Catholic priests. But what was done with Ministers' Money? Was it too transferred to the priests? No; the Act of James II. expressly recited that Ministers' Money was not recognised by the common law; that it was imposed by statute; that it was a grievous imposition; and in conformity with the wishes of all parties it was declared to be abolished for ever. The thorn was small, but it was attended with peculiar exacerbation. He would advocate its entire extraction. He was as convinced as that he was speaking that moment, that unless the ecclesiastical institutions of Ireland were modified, unless Government dealt boldly and promptly with respect both to the Protestant and the Catholic Churches, wretched, paltry, and temporary measures of amelioration might be applied; but that for the evils of Ireland they would not be able to devise an effective cure.

MR. CALLAGHAN supported the Motion. The tax was felt to be a badge of servitude, and a galling injustice; and in the name of the Irish people, he called on the House to abolish it altogether.

MR. GROGAN objected to the mode of settlement suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Master of the Mint. It would not do to abolish Ministers' Money, and to substitute payment out of the Ecclesiastical Fund. That fund was already a portion of the revenues of the Church, and if it were to be applied to other purposes than those to which it was at present allocated, in order that Ministers' Money might be abolished, it was clear that the 12,000l. now received under that head would be alienated from the Church.

MR. M. J. O'CONNELL was of opinion that the tax was a grievance in principle, and that it was inflicted under circumstances which aggravated its injustice, the burden being heaviest on those towns where Catholics most abounded.

MR. J. O'CONNELL said, if the right hon. Gentleman the Master of the Mint intended, by anything that had fallen from him that night, to advocate the pensioning of the Catholic clergy, he, for one, would not give his assent to any such proposition. He considered the tax a gross injustice, and therefore would vote for its abolition; but he did not want to have the revenue that was realised from it transferred to the clergy of his own Church.

MR. FAGAN replied. He believed that an inquiry before a Select Committee would not satisfy the people of Ireland on this question; they would be content with nothing short of a repeal of the Act of Charles.

The House divided on the question that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the question: —Ayes 73; Noes 149: Majority 76.

Amendment agreed to

House adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.