The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-21 00:00:00

THE REPORT ON THE IRISH CHURCH.

PASCAL somewhere compares mankind to •
gang of galley-slaves, working in chains, before
whose eyes certain of their number are killed
every hour, and who know that the same fate,
sooner or later, awaits them all. The feelings of the
Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons of
the Irish Church Establishment, when they read the
Report of the Royal Commission upon the Church
of which they are the bulwark and ornament,
must be very similar to that of PASCAL'S galley-
slaves. In 15433, the number of Irish Bishops was
reduced by ten. In Nig, • Royal Commission
appointed in the interests of the Church, pro-
poses to make an end of a third of those
who have been left. At this rate of pro-
ceeding. it would be easy to compute the
time when Ireland will not have a Pro-
testant Archbishop or Bishop within its
frontier. The Prelates who assented to the ap-
pointment of the Commission which has now
made its report, must regard it with deeply
wounded feelings. They are as the lamb who

•• licks the hand that's raised to shed its blood,"
and skips and plays with touching unconscious-
ness of the butcher's knife. What we say
of the four Bishops applies with equal force to
the twenty-two Deans and the sixteen Archdeacons
whom the Commissioners recommend the legisla-
ture to make away with. These forty-two digni-
taries occupy a poeition which must touch every
tender heart. Illerititri Sr &lista tat must be their
habitual greeting. Of course they are personally
safe. Their life interest in their benefices is not to
be interfered with. In other words, the Royal Com-
missioners propose to treat them precisely as Mr.
GLADSTONE proposes to treat the incumbents of
Ireland generally. If what is sauce for the goose
is sauce for the gander, the treatment which is good
nougb for the Archbishop of DUBLIN or the Bishop
of KILLALOE cannot be too bad for a Rector
or Perpetual Curate. There is as much confisca-
tion, as much violation of the rights of property,
in the transfer of the revenues of one parish or one
diocese to another, as in any other appropriation
of them. It is true that the rev 4 ames are in this case
preserved to what is called the Church ; but they
do not belong to the Church as a whole, but to
particular portions of it, to this or that parish or
diocese. The Church is not a corporation ; each
incumbent is a corporation sole, and to take from
one benefice to give to another is to violate the
rights of a corporate property as com-
pletely as if the sum were set aside to
the building of schools, the creation of a
peasant proprietary, or the redemption of a tax.
As well might the surplus revenues of Manchester
be appropriated to the use of Marlborough, on the
plea that they were preserved for municipal pur-
poses. We do not say that the recommendations
of the Commissioners are open to censure as vio-
lations of the law of property, but we do say, that
the technical and legal objections urged against
Mr. GLADSTONE'S scheme apply in all their force
to the reforms suggested in the Report.
But the whole plan comes too late. What is done
now ought to have been done in 1833. It might then
have broken the full of the Establishment, whose
abolition it cannot now delay. The Irish clergy,
and their flocks themselves, if they are
sensible men, will prefer a speedy and deci-
sive settlement to renewed controversy, followed
as it certainly would be by disestablisbment
on terms far less favourable than Mr. GLADSTONE
proposes. Some of the minor details of the scheme
proposed by the Commissioners are equally ap-
plicable both to their plan and to the policy
which the resolutions of the House of Commons
have sanctioned. This part of the Report has,
therefore, its usefulness ; and the information
which has been collected supplies materials of
value for legislative action in Mr. GLADSTONE'S
sense. But the plan in its main features is still-
born ; and we do not suppose that Mr. DISRAELI,
whether as an ecclesiastical reformer or as a vin-
dicator of the rights of Protestantism and Pro-
perty will venture to adopt it.