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

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.