The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

With respect to the few measures passed last session,
he thought that when Lord Palmerston congratu-
lated the country on not having bad more than a
small number of well-c,risidered measures passed it
would be well in another year to consider it unseemly
to waste the time of Parliament in debating
measures which were admitted to b 3 ill-considered
and abortive, and which were not passed because
they were considered to be adverse to the welfare of
the country and the principles of the Constitution.
Mr. Newdegate briefly alluded to American politics
and to the probable extension of the slave trade by
the present Government of the United States, and
said he trusted that all Englishmen were prepared
to sustain Government in its efforts to suppress
that trade. Mr. Newdegate then came to May-
nooth

Upon one question with which the name of his hon.
friend ( Mr. Spooner) was associated—namely, the Mays
nooth grant—they could not be taunted with having done
nothing. It was often urged that it would be a great act
of injustice to deprive the Roman Catholics of the 30,0001.
a year which they received at present, when it was re•
membered that the Protestants had all the funds of the
Established Church of Ireland at their command. He
denied the force of the argument altogether, for, if it was
unjust to deprive the Roman Catholics of the 30,0001.
whichithey received annually for Maynooth, because the
Protestants had the Church revenues, which amounted to
between 1,000,0001. and 2,000,0001., then, considering that
the Roman Catholics formed the majority of the popula-
tion of Ireland, the 30,0001. they received was insufficient,
and they ought to be endowed at the same rate as the
Protestants. But did the people of this country wish to
see the Church of Rome maintained in Ireland? He
thought that no man who knew anything of the history of
the Church of Rome, and who knew anything of her con-
tinual attacks upon civil and religious liberty, would wish
to see it set up as the rival of our own Church in Ireland;
and if so, he felt that his hon. colleague deserved support
when he proposed the withdrawal of the grant. It was
evidently insufficient if there was any question of justice
as far as the endowment of the two Churches was con•
cerned ; but it committed the Government of this country
to the enlargement of a despotic, tyrannic, and corrupt
jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.

Mr. Newdegate concluded with a few words upon the
state of agricultural prosperity:—
That they were prosperous was a fact admitted upon all
hands. But he believed that the present high rate of
prices—a rate which they all felt was too high—had not
been caused by the present commercial system, which on
the contrary was a system which might, when existing
causes bad ceased to operate, entail upon agriculturists a
renewal of those unremunerative prices under which they
had formerly suffered so terribly. Although it was true
that party men, who had been united by a patriotic feeling,
no longer ranged themselves so arbitrarily as they had
done formerly under hostile political banners, he trnsted
that when Parliament reassembled its members would be
animated by an earnest and conscientious determination
to do their duty, seeing that there was no longer the excuse
of the country being at war, in effecting those great social
improvements which they all desired to see carried out.
Mr. SPOONER, M.P., in a brief speech maintained
that, if the country were now in a flourishing condi-
tion, it was in spite of what was called free trade, but
which was not free trade so long as the taxed labour
of the people had to compete with untaxed imports.
Upon the subject of Maynooth, Mr. Spooner ob-
served :

He did not wish to impose a single restriction upon
those Roman Catholics who, notwithstanding AI the errors
of their faith, were still truly Christians. All the restric-
tions that he wanted were those only which were necessary
for the preservation of Protestantism. The sovereign of
the couutry was bound by her oath to maintain the Pro-
testant Church. The articles of religion declared the
doctrines of Popery to be a blasphemous deceit and a dan-
gerous fable, and, therefore, it they continued this grant of
30,0001., they ought at all events to release the sovereign
from that part of the oath.