The Press.
London, England, 1856-06-28 00:00:00

rritV PittSS.

for him to adopt was to leave the matter with the
house and suffer the bill to pass without opposition.
The house then divided, when the numbers
were :
For the third reading .. .. 213
Against it • • .. 28
Majority .. —lB5
The announcement of the numbers was received
with loud cheers.
The bill was then read a third time and passed.
The Hospital Dublin Bill was read a second time.
The Sardinian Loan Bill was read a third time

and passed.
At the evening sitting, after the presentation of
petitions, an Hon. Member moved that the house be
counted, and there being only thirty•eight members
present, the house adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS-WEDNESDAY.

Major REED called the attention of the house to
the number of times during the present and last
session of Parliament ;that the Speaker had been
unable to form a house (forty members not being
present) ; also the number of times the house had
been counted out " for the same reason during that
period.
Mr. OLIVEIRA gave notice that, on the Bth of July,
he should move that the duty on wine be reduced.

MAYNOOTH COLLEGE BILL.
Mr. SPOONER, in moving the second reading of
the Maynooth College Bill, stated its object to be to
separate the Government and nation at large from
all connection with the College of Maynooth, thereby
removing what he regarded as a great national sin.
The provisions of the bill repealed the act Bth and
9th of Victoria, incorporated the trustees, and
enacted that, with certain exceptions in favour of the
present resident students, the grant to the college
from the Consolidated Fund should cease.

The bill was supported by Sir W. VERNER and Mr.
JAMES MACGREGOR.
Mr. H. HERBERT moved to defer the second read-
ing for six months.
Mr. NAPIER supported the bill. He had never
understood that this college was supported by the
State as a religious endowment. The statute of
1845, which the bill sought to repeal, was passed for
a special legislative and political object, and if that
object had not been carried out,—if the college,
instead of giving a good and enlightened education,
gave an unsound one, inculcating ultramontane doc-
trines,—if, in short, the money professed to be given
for one object was really given for another, the grant
should not be continued.

Mr. MAGUIRE vindicated Maynooth against the
charges made by Mr. Spooner, who, he said, had
been grossly deceived and misled. The bill was in-
tended as a penal measure, because, as it was alleged,
the institution had been tried and found wanting,
and had thereby forfeited the grant, but he
appealed to the character and conduct of the Irish
priesthood and people to disprove these calumnies.
Mr. DRUMMOND opposed the bill, though he thought
Mr. Spooner was entitled to the thanks of the house
for bringing forward this question, which should be
considered, in his opinion, at least once a year, and
he hoped that in the course of time the house would
learn to distinguish between the Church of Rome
and its abuses. He would go, he said, as far as any
one to expose the immorality taught by Roman
Catholic priests, but the best way of dealing with
the evil was to increase the means of education and
to double the grant to Maynooth.
Mr. NEWDEGATE, in supporting the bill, accused
Mr. Drummond of inconsistency in recommending
the doubling of the grant for the benefit of a priest.
hood he condemned, and for the extension of doc-
trines which be stigmatised as leading to the degra-
dation of mankind. He (Mr. Newdegate) refused
to put one shilling into the hands of a priesthood
appointed by Rome, although he was ready to vote
money to the Roman Catholic laity for the.purposes
of education.
Mr. BLAND opposed the bill.

Sir J. PAKING4O2.I avowed that he had been inten•
tionally absent from the house when the motion was
made for leave to introduce this bill. He thought no
reflecting man could shut his eyes to the difficulties
of this question, and he was desirous of knowing the
nature of Mr. Spooner's proposal and the scope of
his bill before he pledged himself by a vote. The
bill, he found, simply went to repeal the act of 1845,
and thereby to reverse the policy adopted towards
Ireland for upwards of half a century, and he was
not prepared to take any stop to reverse the policy.
He was bound to ask himself whether any con-
siderations, religious or political, called upon him,
looking at the mixed character of the population
of Ireland and to the interests of the empire, as a
member of that house and as a Protestant Christian,
to reverse that policy. Mr. Spooner had put
his objection to the grant upon religious grounds;
but, having voted in favour of the policy of Sir R.
Peel in 1845, he (Sir John) was debarred from that
ground of objection, and he, moreover, thought this
would be a most unfortunate moment for the adop.

SATURDAY,

tion of a hostile policy towards the Roman Catholics
of Ireland. Did the advocates of the bill, he asked,
as Christians and as Protestants, think it desirable
that 0,000,000 of their fellow-subjects should be
without a priesthood? If not, was it better that they
should be trained in a foreign country or at home?
It was said that Parliament was guilty of an anomaly
in making this grant; but the whole state of our
religious endowments in Ireland was an anomaly.
He was no Roman Catholic, or semi-Roman Catho-
lic; he was an advocate for toleration and charity,
and he thought it most unadvisable that angry feel-
ings should be excited upon this question between
Roman Catholics and Protestants. Nevertheless, he
confessed that it was attended with considerable
difficulty, and that the views entertained by Mr.
Spooner were shared by a very large portion of the
people of England. One of the avowed motives of
Sir R. Peel in 1845 was to put an end to these
annual discussions, and he (Sir John) suggested
whether it was not possible to devise some mode of
preventing them, by putting the grant upon a diffe-
rent footing. He should vote against the second
reading of the bill.
The bill was also opposed by Mr. BOWYER.
Mr. HORSMAN said the Government thought it
their duty to adhere to this grant as a measure of
policy, justice, and good faith. It was the duty of
the Legislature to preserve tranquillity in Ireland,
and to promote morality and religion ; whatever
tended to raise the moral and religious standard
there was a national duty, and to obstruct that object
was, in his view, a national sin.
Mr. SPOONER replied, when the house divided upon
the amendment, which was negatived by 174 to
108.

The question being then put that the bill be read a
second time,
Mr. BOWYER moved that the debate be adjourned.
Mr. H. HERBERT supported this motion, wine:-
was affirmed by the lapse of time, and, the orders
having been disposed of; the house adjourned at
ten minutes to six o'clock.

HOUSE OF LORDS-THURSDAY.
GRAND JURIES BILL.

Lord CAMPBELL moved the second reading of the
Grand Juries Bill, the object of which, he said, was
to enable the foreman of the grand jury to swear
each witness in their own chamber as he presented
himself to give evidence.

The bill ;as read a second time.
DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.
Lord LYNDHURST, in bringing up the report of the
Select Committee on the Divorce and Matrimonial
Causes Bill, stated that the great object the commit-
tee had in view was to obtain a separate tribunal for
the decision of matrimonial causes, and they came
to the conclusion that it ought to consist of the Lord
Chancellor, the three Chief Justices of the courts of
common law, and the Dean of the Arches. With such a
tribunal, from which, in cases a vinculo matrimonii,
there would be an appeal to the House of Lords in
matters of law but not of fact, he thought their lord-
ships and the public ought to be satisfied. The Dean
of the Arches would have the power to sit alone and
decide cases a ntonsa et thoro, but an appeal would
lie from him to the larger court. As to the altera-
tions in the existing law, he added, the committee
had unanimously decided that where a wife was twin
rated from her husband a mensa et thoro, in conse-
quence of his misconduct, whatever property was
acquired by her subsequent to the separation should
be held for her own separate use. They also proposed
to give her the right of cueing in her own name for
any wrong done to her while living apart from her
husband, which was denied to her at present, unless
with the husband's consent. Adverting to the
action to recover damages in cases of adultery, whicit
operated with the greatest hardship and injustice
towards the wife, and was in that and other respects
of the most scandalous character, he said he had
proposed its abolition in the committee, but in that
he was overruled. In other respects the committee
had made a great step in advance, and recommended
that the wife should have a right of di*orce
in cases of adultery with cruelty, incestuous adul-
tery, and bigamy. He still, however, adhered to
the opinion that it was alike consistent with law,
Scripture, and reason that, with respect to adultery,
the wife should Le put upon the same footing as the
husband in all respects, and he meant to submit a
motion at a subsequent stage of the bill with the
view to elict their lordships' opinion on the
subject.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE supported the bill.
thought the committee had gone as far as they ought.
in drawing a distinction between adultery on the part
of the husband and on the part of the wife.
The LORD CHANCELLOR Said the majority of the,
committee were of opinion that it would not be safe
to abolish the action for criminal conservation alto-

gether. He had no objection to the relief in cases
of adultery being reciprocal ; but he thought a pro-
position giving husband and wife an equal right of
redress, on the presumption that the guilt of each

ALI


THE P RIE IS IS.

an official administrator. He proposed that there
should be a testamentary office in London, with se-
curities against the danger of wills being passed de-
ficient in the requisite solemnities, and it would be
competent for any person to bring a will to that office
for admission to probate. When the will was de-
posited there and proved, he proposed that, instead
of the usual exemplification, copies of the will should
be printed, and that each copy, authenticated by a
stamp, should be conclusive evidence. He proposed
that offices should be established in the rural dis-
tricts, one in each circuit of the county courts, which
should receive all papers connected with the proof
of wills where the personal estate should not exceed
a limited amount. The bill provided further for a
metropolitan place of deposit of wills and for local
subordinate registries in different parts of the coun-
try. With respect to compensation for the proctors,
the Solicitor-General explained, that taking the
number of proctors at 149, and their average profits
at 7001. a year, he proposed to give them by way of
compensation an annuity for life equal to one-half of
their clear profits. The whole amount of the outlay
would be 160,000/., while that of the fee fund, out of
which compensation would be paid, was 181,0001.,
leaving a surplus or margin of 21,0001. In conclu
sion, he expressed his hope that the house would
see that the time had come for the final adjustment
of this question, which he had carefully considered
in conjunction with Sir F. Kelly and Mr. Collier,
who were willing to withdraw the bills they had in-
troduced for the same object. . _

Sir F. KELLY, in seconding and supporting the bill,
expressed a hope that a reform so comprehensive
and so loudly called for would speedi!y become law.
Reason, experience, and authority were all on its
side.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM was not disposed to resist the
second reading, but must reserve his opinion upon
several points till a future stage. He thought that
any compensation given should be charged upon the
annual votes, so that it might be yearly under
review.

Mr. COWER gave a conditional support to the
measure. He would insist that all questions of fact,
such as the competency of the testator, should be
decided by a jury. He did not think the right of
appeal to the Lords Justices any improvement.
Mr. MAr.ms denied that the defects in the working
of the ecclesiastical courts were so great as to justify
abolition. Correction, and not abolition, ought to
be the principle upon which the house should act.
He protested against the propoYal to set up a second
minor Court of Chancery to do that which the pre-
sent Court of Chancery was perfectly capable of
transacting.
Mr. John Phillimore, Sir Erskine Perry, Mr.
Robert Phillimore, Mr. Bowyer, and Mr. Watson,
having spoken in favour of the second reading, the
bill was read a second time.
The house then resolved itself into a committee
upon the County Courts (Judges' Salaries, &c.)
Bill, which was ordered to be reported.