The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 20, 1863'.

dell) infringe upon the principle of non-intervention by
urging the Governtneht to abstain fronVtinirolting the
country in boundless co-mplicatiOns ILI China p Again, was
the detention of the reterhoff mails a subject with
to which the hon. member was entitled to warn them of the
doctrine of non-intervention ? Neither was he entitled to
censure the honourable member for King's County 'for
bringing forward the question of Poland. The allegation
of his honourable friend the member for Malden (Mr.
Peacock) had been entirely misunderstood. The com-
plaint against the four gentlemen who filled the post of
Under-Secretaries of State was not on the score of any
want of ability evinced by them in that house; but that
they had no share in framing the policy which they re-
commended, and that, consequently, they very inade-
quately represented their several departments. The
noble lord then proceeded to complain of the Govern-
ment not having assisted to form a house on the night
when the motion with respect to Turkish affairs stood for
discussicn ; and observed that if the Government only took
steps to make a house on the nights when there was busi-
ness set down in which th.y had an interest, the result
would be they would feel thems.lves at perfect liberty to
adopt measures en all occasions which would lead to a count
out. He considered the conduct of the Government on Fri-
day night with respect to the Chinese discussion the most
discourteous that any Government could be guilty of.
Mr. M, MILES expressed gratification that hon. mem-
bers seemed to be awakening to the importance of the sur•
render which they made some years ago. With respect to
what took place on Friday night he must say he did not
believe that the Government were guilty of the slightest
intentional discourtesy towards the hon. members con-
cerned. It was impossible they could have been, for they
themselves must have b€on anxious the qu, stion of China
should be debated before the return of Captain Sherard Os-
born and his brother officers to that country.
Mr. B. COCHRANE asked the noble lord at the head
of the Government to give an assurance to the house that
they would use a real endeavour to make and keep a house
on Fridays as if Government business was always fixed for
that night. The hon. member then complained that though
the noble lord had the other evening given a very indefinite
answer in reply to a question asked by him as to the ac-
ceptance of the throne of Greece by Prince Willian of Den-
mark, the next morning there appeared in a public organ
which was supposed to enjoy the patronage of the noble
lord, an article stating that everything connected with
the Greek succession had been finally settled, although it
would now seem that so far from that being the case, the
Greek deputation were not to get any reply from the Danish
Government until the Ist of June, However, what he had
to complain of was that public journals should receive infor-
mation which was kept back from members of that house.
Sir G. GREY said that, if a house was to be made on
Friday nights, the Government had a right to expect that
private members who had notices on the paper would come
down with their friends, and help not only to mak but keep
a house. With regard to what took place on Friday night,
he thought that his hon. friend the Under-Secretary had
very candidly admitted that he laboured under a misappre-
hension as to the rules of the house; and he must remind
hon. members that there were several gentlemen present
who might have kept the discussion alive had they so
willed. The alteration which had taken place in the mode
of conducting business on Friday evenines was introduced
upon the recommendations of a select committee, and not at
the instance of the Government; and if it were desired to
reopen the question, the best plan would be to refer it once
more to the consideration of a committee. As for the ob-
servations which had been made upon the manner in which
the department of the Foreign Office was represented in
that house, he begged to remind the house that it was by no
means an uncommon thing to have the Minister for
Foreign Affairs sitting in the other House of Parliament.
Lord Aberdeen sat in the House of Lords; Lord Claren-
don sat in the House of Lords; and, lastly, Lord Malmes-
bury, during both of Lord Derby's Administrations, sat in
the House of Lords. (Hear, hear,) At the same time
there was very much less foundation in the present in-
stance for the complaint that hod been made, since
there was present in that house his noble friend the head
of the Government, whose vast experience in the conduct
of the business of the Foreign-office and extensive know-
ledge of European politics would be at once admitted.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. LIDDELL fully acquitted the Under-Secretary of
anything like intended discourtesy to himself. If dis-
courtesy was shown upon the occasion by the Government
it was towards the country.
NAVAL COURTS OF INQUIRY.

Captain JERVIS desired to inquire of the Secretary of
the Admiralty what were the regulations 13y which naval
courts of inquiry were constituted, and their proceedings
governed. The hon member said that a short time ago
an event took place in the West Indies which dispelled
the confidence of naval officers in courts of iaquiry. A
captain having lost his vessel, he was tried by a court-
martial, when he was fully acquitted. Nevertheless, the
Admiralty took upon themselves to censure every officer
who composed the court, as well as the officer who lost his
vessel. Now, according to the naval code, the sentence
of a court-martial was final, and therefore the Admiralty
had taken upon themselves to do what they had no right
to do. The result was, officers had no longer any confi-
dence in that code. The hon. member then proceeded to
call attention to the grounding of the Vigilant, off Sheer-
ness, and to the officer in command having been deprived
of his ship without knowing the reason why; while not a

word of complant was addressed to the pilot in charge,
. .

The result of the inquiry was that the officer was de-
prived of his ship, and severely censured by the Board of
Admiralty. Having remonstrated with the Admiralty on the
unfairness of the course pursued towards him, he was told
that, if he could disprove the facts established at the inquiry
he could have a court martial. But this was little more than
sheer mockery, for a court martial could not remove the
censure passed upon Lord Elphinstone by the Admiralty;
and if they could, they would be casting it upon the Admi-
ralty. A statement had been made in another place by the
noble duke at the head of the Admiralty with reference to
this matter, to the effect that the pilot not having been able
to read or write, the commander of the vessel ought to have
taken it out of his hands. But, so far from it being the fact
that the pilot could not read or write, he held in his hand a
copy of a letter in the pilot's handwriting, which he had
addressed to the Admiralty, complaining of the wrong that
was done him. The hon. and gallant gentleman concluded
by expressing a hope that the noble lord the Secretary to
the Admiralty would be able to give a satisfactory explana-
tion upon the matter.
Mr. DUFF corroborated in a great mew ure the statement
made by the hon. and gallant officer, and contrasted the con-
duct of the Admiralty and the War •office. What, he asked,
would be thought if an officer were dismissed her Majesty's
service by the War-office without having the subject-mat-
ter of the complaint investigated by a court martial, before
which the officer could have the assistance of counsel?
Sir J. PAKINGTON thought the matter was a very
serious one, and that it ought to be carefully considered.
If there was a rule that in stress of weather the captain
of a man-of-war should control a well-qualified pilot, the
sooner it was modified the better. He confessed the prat-

tice on board merchant shirs appeared to him to be much
more reasonable, namely, that when the pilot took charge
of the vessel the responsibility of the captain ceased.
During his short experience at the Admiralty no case of
his nature occurred, and he could not sit down without
expressing his strong disapproval of courts constituted like
that before which the case of the Vigilant was heard. It
was hardly possible to expect justice could be done to per-

sons tried by such a tribunal ; the accused not permitted
to be present, and witnesses examined behind their backs.
(Hear.)
Mr. ADAM said the trial appeared to him to be a denial
of justise, for it was only after Lord Elphinstone had been
°ensured and deprived of the ship that he was told he could
have a court.martial.

Lord C. PAGET suggested that bringing the case of the
Vigilant before the house would not do good to its cap-
tain. The Vigilant was coming from Scotland, bound for
the Thames, and was making for the Swin Channel, well
known in the new Admiralty charts. There was evidence
that the ship was steering a wrong course when it ran
aground. The Admiralty could not avoid giving Lord El-
phinatone great blame under the circumstances, and no pilot
could absolve him from the blame. The Admiralty ordered
a court of inquiry. These courts were usual under two
circumstances—where there were too few officers at a station
to constitute a court-martial, and where the offence was of a
lighter nature. Three distinguished officers held that court
at Sheerness. The Admiralty felt that it was a grave omis-
bion that Lord Elphinstone, on giving his testimony, was
not recalled and allowed to be present ; but they felt it their
duty to write to him expressing a grave censure on his
conduct. Ha then requested to be tried by court-martial,
and the Admiralty replied by sending him the evidence and
promising him a court-martial if he thought fit to ask it
(Sir J. Pakington—They punished him fi at.) Yes, they
censured him, (Hear, hear.) (Sir J. Hay—They dis-
missed him from the ship.) (Hear, hear.) He was not
dismissed ; the ship wag so damaged that it was not fit to go
to sea. (Sir J. Hay--The Admiralty put it out of commis-
sion.) The ship in fact was hors de combat. (Ironical
cheers.) But Lord Elphinstonb's reply vas that the court-
martial could not restore him to his ship, nor remove the
censure. He (Lord C. Paget) condemned this unjust reflec-
tion on the officers of the navy. It was not true that be-
cause there was a pilot on board the captain in the navy
was not to have charge. In the merchant service such a rule
was necessary, on account of the assurance, but he hoped
never to ace it in the Royal navy.
thought this discussion would
an
evidentad.bedeotofth
e
a
iS vantageir
indignationil.toCA theinlßthe
house,
mruale t Admiralty. (Hear.) There
which could n
palpable injustice which was doneto gallant b
commission;
e
ni iosffisicoenr..
butl
the very next day another ship was commissioned,
was quite true the Vigilant was put out of
and

master. except Lord Elphinstone and the
hear.) lho
effect a dismissal of Lord Elphinstone. (Hex;,
it
every officer, man, and boy was transferred to tThheisnewwasshiinp
court of inquiry was one-sided and a mockery ; ought not
ElSpihrinjs.tolint,
Y
to be called a court at all.
and could speak with confidence of his pro-
fessional abilities. The noble lord had t.. very able pilot on
said he had served some years under Lord
board the Vigilant, in whose charge she was, and nothing
had occurred to induce the noble lord to withdraw his con-
fidence from him. Ile censured the Admiralty for refusing

the court-martial and granting the court of inquiry, which
waiti great slur Ok a naVat officer: !" 7/-
Mr. COLLIER defended generally the course pursued by
-the .A.-disidr4lFy, though ho admitted that in one respect Lord
Elphlnsiones absence from the inquiry was a grievance of
which the noble lord had just cause of complaint. It was
not until after the court of inquiry had made its report that
a court-martial was asked for.
Mr. WHITESIDE said the Beard of Admiralty had no
right to refuse a court-martial and proceed against Lord
Elphinstone by a court of inquiry, which was an illegally
constituted tribunal.
1 he subject then dropped.
THE IRISH MEMBERS AND THE IRISH
FISHERY BILL.

Mr. E ~MONDE asked the Irish Secretary whether a
report which appeared in the Inman's Journal of Satur-
day last, and which purported to give an account of a meet-
ing of Irish members convened by the right hon. gentleman
in one of the apartments of that house, was correct; and if
so, why the right hon. gentleman had omitted to invite the
attendance of members representing large interests in con-
nection with the Irish salmon fisheries.
Sir R. PEEL said the meeting to which the hon. mem-
ber referred was constituted of himself and three other hon.
members connected with Ireland, with whom he was anxious
to consult as to the provisions of the Fishery Bill proper to
be introduced. He had seen the report alluded to, and he
must say he had never been more surprised than at seeing
the very admirable speech which was attributed to him,
but one word of which he had not spoken. (Laughter.) He
believed the report in question was traceable to the hon,
member for Waterford (Mr. Blake).
Mr. BLAKE repudiated the allegation that the report
was traceable to him.
THE AMERICAN WAR.—RIGHTS OF NEUTRALS
Lord A. VANE desired, before the adjournment for the
recess, to take the opportunity of calling attention to the
position of neutral traders belonging to this country in the
present crisis of the American war; and he was the more
induced to do so from having read the statement of the noble
garl the Secretary for Foreign Affairs that evening. It
would seem as if Federal cruisers had the right to an un-
timited degree of seizing neutral vessels going to Matamoras
and Nassau. Nuw, the noble lord the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs had laid it down, in a despatch to Washington, that
1 hough the right of belligerents to stop neutral traders was
very useful right, yet, unless it was used with discrimi-
ation, it would become an intolerable evil. In another
lace, however, the noble lord was too much in the habit of
peaking the views of the Washington Cabinet; and there-
ore it was that he desired to impress upon the Government
pre necessity of having the principles laid down by Mr.
eward in his despatch of August last rigidly adhered to ;
therwise the American Government would only be too
ikely to presume upon our rights.
IRISH DISTRESS.

Mr. MAGUIRE gave notice that on the 23d of Jute
e would move an address, praying for a Royal commis-
iion to inquire into and report upon the state of the agri-
cußural elassLPs of Ireland, and suggest measures for their
relief.
Mr. 111‘.51AHON gave notice that on Tuesday, June 2,
be would call attention to some of the causes of the distress
prevailing in Ireland, and the mcans which had been
adopted to prevent its recurrence.
RATING TO THE POOR.

Mr. HUBBARD gave notice that on Friday, June 19, he
would call attention to the laws relating to the rating to the
1/4-;or, and move for certain returns.
The motion for the adjournment of the house was then
greed to.

expressed an opinion that it would ho impossible to main-
tain -tvir establishments in Ireland, and that,the time
would come when it would be necessary, as a matter of
jUstice, -to 'make provision - for the Catholic priesthood.
He thought the Liberal party should no longer delay to
bring the question forward, and that they should also urge
the Government to proceed with the measures which were
popular on that side of the House. It appeared to him that
the noble lord at the head of the Government looked rather
for support to honourable members on the cross benches on
the opposite side than to the Liberal party. The party
opposite were strengthening their ranks, and it was not
improbable that they would soon be crossing sides—(a
laugh)—and all he could say was that he would .do his best
to bring about a change in the temporalities of the Irish
Church.

Sir J. TREL AWNY seconded the motion.
Mr. H. SEYMOUR rose to move an amendment to the
following effect :—" That an humble address be presented
to her Majesty, praying that her Majesty will be pleased
to appoint a Royal commission to inquire into the territo-
rial arrangements of existing benefices, whether consisting
of single parishes or unions of parishes ; the extent and
contiguity of such parishes, the means of internal commu-
nication, the provision for the cure of souls, the amount of
population,
and the number of Protestants in each bene-
fice." The hon. gentleman said he had taken the terms of
his motion from a remarkable pamphlet published Ly
Archdeacon Stopford, an eminent dignitary of the Irish
Church, and he thought his amendment was better calcu-
lated to cure the admitted abuses in the temporali-
ties of the Irish Church than the remedy pro.

posed by the honourable member for Swansea.
Reform was demanded on go d grounds, because there
were clergymen who did no work at all and were paid, while
other clergymen did a great deal of work without any pay.
The details even of the Connaught Endowment Society
showed there were many churches wanting assistance,
and a surplus could not be spoken of until the resources
of the Church were inquired into. A select committee
was not the most suitable to inquire into these things,
but a Royal commission ; but, in order that the meetings
of the latter might be satisfactory, care must be taken of
the terms of reference. The commission of 1830, ap-
pointed on the motion of the Duke of "Wellington, was
useless in a great measure, owing to the terms in which the
subject was referred to it. A:commission was most fitting,
as the members of it could visit the parishes and examine
them on the marl, and rodietributo the incomes according
to the wants of each. The appropriation principle having
been abandoned by Lord John Russell would not, he hoped,
be again attempted. This commission would be prepared to
report this year, so that a bill could be brought in next ses-
sion which would settle for ever the Irish Church. (Oh,
oh.) The hon. member concluded by moving his amend-
ment.

Mr. NE WDEGA IT seconded it.
Mr. WHITESIDE opposed the motion of the hon. mem-
ber for Swansea, as well as all the other motions on the
paper, He entered into an inquiry of the policy of the
school of politicians to whom the hon. member belonged to-
wards the Established Church. They had endeavoured to
gain a character by attacking bit by bit the English Esta-
blished Church, and they now took the bolder course of
attacking that branch of the United Church in Ireland.
Referring to the proposition of a royal commission, the right
hon. gentleman said he found from inquiry that of late
years the sum of £823,171 had been expended in unprofit-
able royal commissions. He ridiculed the idea of an ex •
Secretary to the Admiralty attempting Church reform, and
censured the conduct of the Liberal party towards the
Church. The hon. member for Swansea had referred to the
lamentable state of Ireland, and he proposed as a panacea
for all those evils, the banishing from that country of one
branch of the Christian Church. (No.) The question had
not been brought forward or suggested by the Roman Ca-
tholic members, and he regretted there were not measures
of a more practical character before them on which to en.
gage their attention. So important a question as that under
the consideration of the house was not within the pro-
vince of a private member, and it ought not to be left to
him to unsettle the fundamental basis of the Church. He
believed the Church of Ireland ought to be maintained, be-
cause it supported the pure Catholic faith that was in e' ist •
ence there centuries before the English set foot in Ireland,
and he asserted that the present bishops of that Church
were the de3cendants of the earliest teachers of the pure
faith in Ireland. He traced the history of the church dur-
ing the time of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James, and
said that the State connected itself with the English Church,
which in all times had been true to the monarch, faithful to
the principles of the constitution, and had always stood by
the well-regulated liberties of the country. The settlement
of the Church in Ireland had been 'productive of benefit.
It had been asked what success had attended the settlement
in Ulster. To that he would answer that the country was
controlled by a foreign power, by which he meant the Pa-
pacy; and the object of that power was to root out the Esta-
blished Church and to extirpate the English name, religion,
and race, in order to have a platform for carrying out its
designs. What harm did the Established Church do to
anybody ? Had any petitions been sent to that house from

the Irish Dissenters in support of the hon. member's pro-
position ? Not one. The Irish Dissenters were upon too
friendly terms with their brethren of the Established Church

to wish for any change. If the Established Church were
swept away the Church of Scotland would go down, the
Baptists would go down, the Wesleyans would go down,
and as for the Quakers, they would be devoured in a mo-
ment. (Laughter.) The hon, and learned gentleman then
enumerated the churches that were built and enlarged in
Ireland since the union, and those that were built and en-
larged since the appointment of the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners, and stated that the only five places where the po-
pulation had increased during the last 10 years were the
most Protestant places in Ireland ; but where the popula-

tion bad most diminished the Roman Catholics were most
numerous. If they destroyed the parochial system of th 3
Established Church in Ireland, there would be nothing to
oppose the most wonderful organisation in the world—the
Church of Rome. A handful of fanatics running through
the country would not be a match for a Church that was not
only powerful in Ireland, but exercising a mighty influence
throughout the world. It would have been impossible to have
secured the Union had not the Legislature pledged itself to
the maintenance of the Protestant Church ; and it was not
becoming in English members now to seek to get rid of that
pledge. There had been returns moved for in that house
with reference to Ireland, with the avowed object of show-
ing that the number of members in the Church of England
had decreased ; those returns were untrustworthy, for up
to 1810 the enumerators, being paid by the. numbers they re-
turned, made their lists as large as possible ; and in the
later returns, the Dissenters, who were formerly included
in the lists of the Church of England, were given in sepa-
rate columns. Upon the history of the country—the his-
tory of the Church—the state of Ireland—the condition of
the Church, never so prosperous—he rested his defence of
the Established Church of Ireland ; but, above all, it was
to be defended, because of its connection with the Refor-
mation. (Cheers.)
Mr. B. OSBORNE then moved the adjournment of the
debate.

Mr. DILLWYN hoped that if the debate was adjourned
the Government would give up a night for so important a

question.
Lord PALMERSTON said the Government could not do
that; but he had no doubt the hon. member would find no
difficulty in fixing a night for the purpose. (Ironical cheers
and laughter from the Opposition benches.)
Mr. MONSELL would recommend his hon. friend the
member for Liskeard (Mr. B. Osborne) to introduce the
question on the day for supply.
Mr. B. OSBORNE said he had no other course, and con•
seluently he begged to give notice that on the first night for
going into committee of supply, which would be Thursday,
June 28, he would move a resolution with regard to the
Irish Church. (Cheers )
MR. REECE AND THE QUEEN'S WESTMINSTER