The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-20 00:00:00

600 cally opposed to principle—that it was a violation of the most sacred rights of property—and the grounds on which it was brought torward were unworthy of the ;over! nuent which had undertaken it. He would reply to the challenge thrown out to him by the noble earl, with reference to the course adopted by him in 183'2 and 1833. He had a recollection of that time very clearly in his mind. In consequence of the responsible station he held the arrangement of the affairs of the Church gave him no little un easiness; but although the measures, stringent as they were, which Government resorted to met with considerable opposition from the friends of the Established Church, and with equal opposition perhaps from opponents of the Established Church, and were not unopposed by some of the members of the Cabinet of which he was a member, the act which he had a principal share in passing was now admitted on all hands to have rescued the Church from a position of very great danger. In 183 . 2 and 1833, there was a crusade against the existence of the Established Church, which was in every way assaulted by a large and power ful political party, led and encouraged by the late Mr. O'Connell, and the opposition to tithes was in finitely more formidable than the opposition to ministers' money. Under those circumstances, the measures passed by Earl Grey's Government were passed to save the Church of Ireland from imminent danger; those measures had been to a great extent successful, and he had the satisfaction of thinking that he had been instrumental in adding to thesafety and security of that establishment. The distinction between church cess and ministers' money was broad and clear. The church cess was more or less a voluntary assessment—it was uncertain in amount and dependent upon the will of the vestry; it was levied exclusively by Protestants upon Roman Catholics, and excited great ill-will ; but ministers' money was a tax two hundred years old of a definite amount fixed upon property, and was just as much attached to individual houses as a chief rent or any other permanent charge : Supposing I bought a house liable to the payment of 501. a year for the support of a Jewish synagogue. I should like to know what would be said of me if, from conscientious motives, I refused to pay money for such a purpose. A wise man would call me a fool, and an honest man would call me rive, and the iaw would say that,being liable, I must put my conscientious scruples iu my pocket and take my money out of my pocket, and pay the amount. This charge does not fall exclusively on Protestants or on Roman Catholics, but on the occupiers of certain houses, the owners of which have bought those houses subject to the tax, and therefore liable to pay it. I think I have sufficiently answered my noble friend as to the distinction between church cess, uncertain in amount and voluntary in assessment, and ministers' money, a fixed charge on property which the purchasers contracted to pay at the time of the purchase. I know my argument will be lightly esteemed by my noble friend, and I will therefore quote authority not of a very remote date as to the religious objections to the payment of this tax. In MI it was said : This tax had nothing to do with any religious question. It was a tax upon property, and it would be perfectly preposterous to make the rate upon a house dependent upon the religion of its owner. The tax was nne upon property, to which every man knew he was liable when he purchased it, and had really nothing whatever to do with religious feeling. That was the opinion in 15:14 of a colleague of my noble friend—a colleague then and a colleague now—the present First Lord of the Treasury. The Government in 1834 hatl not only refused to take away the inviolability of that property but they gave an additional sanction to the tax by imposing new modes of coilecting it. Yet the members of the same Govern ment now came forward on the ground of expediency alone, and that of the lowest kind, and asked their lordships to take away that property which in 1854 they themselves declared to be inviolate. Yet on the low ground of expediency he was prepared to contest the further progress of the hill, and to show that the funds at the disposal of the Irish Ecclesiastical Com missioneri were not sufficient for the payment of this additional charge of 12,0(X11. a year, proposed by this bill to place upon them. The noble Earl then re ferred to documents and reports of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to prove how inefficient was the sum which remained in their hands to meet so formidable &drain upon their resources, and that it would, in fact, compel them to abstain from carrying out the very objects which they were constituted to advance. He referred also to a report signed by the Primate of Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland—a member of the present Government. " I regard this bill," said the noble Earl, "as a confession on the part of the Govern ment of their inability to maintain the law ':— IC cannot conceive anything more damaging or injurious t 3 the eharacter of the present and of all Governments than the measure now under consideration. I venture to say that the Government have abundant means of enforcing the law. Why, with regard to nearly three fourths of the t it: there is no resistance on the part of the persons upon whom it is charged, but the opposition proceeds from certain corporate bodies upon whom the duty of collecting the rate is imposed, and who were authorised by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to suspend the collection of the tax. THE PRESS. Was such a thing ever before known as a public body in forming the Lord Lieutenant that it was their deliberate intention not to obey the law, anti requiring him, on that ground, to obtain an alteration of the law in accordance with their views? If ever such a suggestion was made, can an instance be adduced when a Government did not reject the proposal with indignation, but, on the contrary, tamely yielded to the request, and themselves brought forward a measure for carrying it into effect? Don't tell me that the Government have no power to enforce the tax. The existing law provides that, in default of payment half yearly, the amount shall be recoverable as a debt due to the Crown from the city of Dublin, or any other city or borough in which default may occur, anti that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland may order all sums due to the Crown to be recovered and paid to the Ecclesiastical Commission ers. Am Ito be told that, with the powers of recovering the tax as a Crown debt, the law or the Government are so impotent in Ireland that 11,000/. cannot be collected in these eight cities? I oppose this bill upon the ground of principle, inasmuch as it takes away from the Church property which belongs to that institution by a sacred right. I have proved to your lordships, upon the evidence of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, that the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commission ers, so far from being able at the present moment to bear an additional charge, are wholly inadequate to the charges imposed upon them by Parliament; and I have presented to your lordships this consideration—that nothing can be more dangerous than that a Government should yield to the mere clamour of one or two corporations, in a case where there is no proved necessity for an alteration of the law, when the Government have already obtained judg ment for the Crown in the Court of Exchequer, anti where, therefore, the law cannot be doubtful. Upon all these grounds of principle and expediency I feel it my bounden duty to give my voice against this bill, and to move that it be read a second time this day six months. The Earl of Harrowby, the Earl of Cork, and Lord de Malahide, supported the bill. The Bishop of Kilmore, Viscount Thangannon, the Earl of Wicklow, and the Earl of Donoughrnore, opposed it. The Earl of EMENBOROUOR had become ac quainted with the nature of this tax twenty years ago, and thought it was necessary to get rid of it. It was not a fancy grievance, but a remnant of the old penal code, and it was desirable to get rid of it. He wanted to see established in Ireland what was intended by the Roman Catholic Relief Bill—that was religious peace, and he did not think they would advance religious peace if they attempted to collect this tax. To render the funds sufficient to bear the new charge he proposed to reduce the expenses of the commissioners by transferring the management of the Church temporalities from the separate and independent body by which they are at present managed, to the Board of Works in Ireland. He gave his support to the second reading, accompanied by an intimation that he would propose an amend ment in committee to carry out his suggestion if the Government declined to adopt it. Lord BERNERS opposed the bill. - - - - The Duke of NEWCASTLE contended that they should now settle the question in a way that would produce religious peace in Ireland, and gave his support to the bill. At the same time he must ex press his regret at being obliged to withdraw from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners any portion of the funds intrusted to their administration. The house then divided, when there appeared— For the second reading Against it .... •• • • Majority for Government Their lordships then adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS-THURSDAY. NEW WRIT. On the motion of Mr. HAvrEa a new writ was ordered to be issued for the electioa of a representa tive for Banffshire, in the room of the Right Hon. James Earl of Fife, who since his election has accepted the office of Steward of her Majesty's manor of Hempholme. SATINOS-BANKS. The CHANCELLnR of the EXCHEQUER, in reply to Lord Goderich and Sir H. Willoughby, said that lie should proceed with his bill next Thursday, and in the event of the Savings•bank Bill becoming law in the present session, be should be prepared to assent to the appointment next session of a committee to consider the general state of the law relating to savings -banks, both as regarded their constitution and the financial questions raised by gentlemen opposite, with a view to the reconsideration and con solidauon of the statutory enactments. SUPPLY. ARMY ORGANISATION. Mr. Farm:iv having brought up the report of the Committee of Supply, General PEEL drew attention to portions of the evidence taken before the Sebastopol Committe , and the Chelsea Commission, in order to show the lives. sity of defining the responsibility and duties of the various departments, and especially of the Secretary for War. The great lault of our military system, he observed, was the making one department respon sible for another, so that there was a want of security for the co-operation of the whole. He asked whether anything had been done in consequence, in the way of improving those portions of the army establish- SATURDAY, ments which related to the supply of all kinds of necessaries ? Mr. E. ELLICE, sen., believed that very much had been done since the late war to put the army in a state of efficiency; but a definite statement from the War Department on this important subject was looked for by the country. Sir J. PAXINOTON thought General Peel had done great service in calling attention to this subject, and hoped that, in time of peace, the Government would see the importance of having the duties of the diffe rent military departments clearly understood and defined, especially those of the Secretary for War and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Sir W. CODRINGTON thought unity in the army should exist ; but he did not believe this unity could be effected when you had two officials with corelative powers not defined:— The discipline and punishment of the army were left, be believed, as entirely as they could be when there was a Secretary for War, with the Commander-in-Chief ; but he believed it would be very difficult to say who was really the person responsible for any particular regulation or even point of discipline. Now the discipline of the ar m y mus t left in the bands of the Commander-in-Chief. The ap pointment of persons to commissions also must surely be left to the Commander-in. Chief. Then who, under those circumstances, was to be responsible? Hon. gentleiwgt asked questions in that house, and expected answers from the Under Secretary for War ; but, surely, as a general rule, the Commander-in-Chief was responsible ; and if so, he ought to have the most ample and independent power to carry thin responsibility into effect. Lord PALMERSTON pointed out to the house that at the commencement of the late war there were four different authorities governing the army. At present these four were merged into two, the Secretary of State for War and the Commander-in- Chief ; but between the duties of these two depart ments there must necessarily be the most intimate communication : The fundamental distinction between the two offices is that the Secretary of State for War is responsible for everything relating to the political and financial arrange ments of the army, while the Commander-iu•Chief is primarily responsible for all which has reference to the discipline and promotion of the troops. It would, how ever, be a matter of impossibility to provide that those two heads of departments should not, without injury• to the public service, hold constant personal communication with one another upon points which are intimately con nected with their respective offices. Draw as you will upou paper any positive line of distinction between the officers in question, it is impossible that you can do so without interfering with that harmonious and confidential intercourse between the two, without which the military service cannot be efficiently administered. lam happy to be able to say that such is the nature of the communica tion which now subsists between my noble friend at the head of the War Department and the illustrious Prince who holds the office of Commander-in-Chief. Nothing, indeed, can be more completely harmonious and confi dential than their intercourse. Mr. STAFFORD remarked upon the deficiency of the medical departments of the army, and replied to Lord Palmerston's assertion of harmony at the Horse Guards : He might say that it had for some time been evident that dissatisfaction prevailed in military quarters with re spect to the working of the War•ollice and the Horse Guards. It was complained that responsibility was so divided between them that it was impossible to ascertain to which department the responsibility of a particular act attached. The noble lord at the head of the Government had most justly observed that confidential communication ought to exist between two members of different departments; that communication, for instance, must be permitted to subsist between the Admiralty and the War-office; but it was in his ( Mr. Stafford's) opinion extremely desirable that, while such was the case, the public at large should be in a position to know at whose door the responsibility of a particular act was to be laid. The noble lord had also stated that while the Secretary of State for War had had the political and financial departments of the administra tion of the army under his control, that department which related to promotion and discipline was under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief; but, so far as he ( Mr. Stafford) could learn from the tone of the debate, some bon. members entertained in reference to the latter point opinions somewhat at variance from those to which the noble lord bad given expression. A desultory conversation ensued, in which Sir J. RAMSDEN stated the Government only intended to use the Curragb camp as a summer camp, and that Tetley Hospital was to be built upon its present site. ORD'SANCE SURVEY. The house proceedecitocOli;ide;" the next vote — viz., 151,7441. for the education of the sciewitic branch of the army (including the national survey by the Ordnance Department). Sir D. NOME TS proposed that it be'reduced by 36,000/., in order to compel the survey of Scotland to be taken on the same scale as Ireland and the northern portion of England had been taken—viz., on a scale of six inches to the mile, instead of the larger scale of twenty-five inches to the mile, on which the Scotch survey was b e i ng pro c eeded with, mainly, as he said, to furnish the proprietor; of estates in Scotland with maps thereof at the public expense ;