The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-29 00:00:00

THE POST-OFFICE.

Mr. D. GRIFFITH moved foraselect committee to
inquire whether the practice of appointing a peer of the
realm, exclusively. to the office of Postmaster-General is
one w.uchis directed or required by any legal enactment or
constitutional principle, and whether the continuance of
such practice is of advantage to the public service. The
hon. gentleman took the opportunity of reviving the cir-
cumstances connected with the Post-office from a very
early period. He contended that the practice of appointing
none but peers to the Post-office ought to be discontinued,
because their aristocratic postmasters-general had never
been amongst those, who had improved the postal system ' •
on the contrary, they had been always opposed to changes
of every description, and when Sir Rowland Rill's scheme
was first made known the aristocratic postmasters were
amongst those who ridiculed the plan which had led to
such beneficial results, and which had induced the country
to confer a very handsome pensionon that distinguished
person.
Mr. F. PEEL thought the committee proposed would be
useless trouble. There was no law to prevent a commoner
holding the office of Postmaster-General, but there was an
act of Parliament which prevented a Postmaster-General
sitting in that house. He could not see that there would be
any advantage in having the person filling the office of
Postmaster-General in that house, especially as the officers

of the, Treasury
at present in the house were quite equal
to 'tile transaction of any matters of detail.

The motion, after a few words from Mr. D. GRIFFITH,
was withdrawn.

CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT (IRELAND).

A great number of petitions on this subject having been
presented, _ . _

Mr. DILLWYN rose to move that, in the opinion of
this house, the present position of the Irish Church Esta-
blishment is unsatisfactory, and calls for the early atten-
tion of her Majesty's Govermment. In support of the
motion the hon. member repeated the old familiar argument
that the Irish Church was the church of a small minority,
and that nine-tenths of the inhabitants not included in her
pfle were left without any religious provision at her hands.
This was an unsatisfactory state of things which required
the intervention of this country, for it was by the power of
England that the injustice had been created and perpetu-
ated. He did not introduce the question as an enemy but
an attached friend and supporter of the Church of England;
and he believed that a reform of the Irish Establishment,
so far from leading to an attack on the Church in this
country was calculated to strengthen the English Estab-
lishment, which there could be no doubt was based upon
the affectionate attachment of the people. On the other
hand, the Irish Church was founded in manifest injustice ;
the nepotism and corruption of the highest dignitaries of
that church were perfectly appalling, and there was no
solid reason whatever for its continuance.

The O'DONO UGHUE seconded the motion, and called
upon the Government at the outset to state the course they
contemplated taking. If they were disposed to act justly
he believed they would be supported by a considerable
portion of the house and the people of England, and by the
vast majority of the people of Ireland. Just, prompt, and
vigorous action would at this particular moment have a
most beneficial effect, not only on the state of Ireland, but
the future prospect of the empire.
Sir G. GREY unhesitatingly declared that the Govern-
ment did not consider it their duty to assent to the motion-
If they agreed to it, it would be equally their duty at an
early period to submit to Parliament a bill giving effect to
the sense in which the resolution was proposed. Though
the terms in which it was conceived were ambiguous,there
was no mistaking the speeches by which it had been en-
forced, and the real question was not whether the Irish
Church should be reformed, but whether she should
continue to have an existence. This being the case, with
equal frankness he said that the Government were not pre-
pared to take upon themselves the responsibility of propos-
ing=a measure to accomplish any such object. They be-
lieved that that object could not be attained without inflict-
ing the greatest disasters on Ireland ; that it would bo the
means of exciting to the ereatest extent feelings of religious
animosity there, and postpone indefinitely the period when,
irrespective of politics and creeds, Irishmen would unite to
promote by their own efforts the moral and social improve-
ment of the country. As an abstract question he admitted
that the establishment of a Church that represented only a
small minority was indefensible ; but the Irish Church was
not a new creation ; it was an existing institution resting
upon the unbroken proscription of centuries, and he thought
it could not be subverted without a revolution, accompanied
by all the evils and horrors of a revolution. The clergy
performed their duties faithfully, unobtrusively, and zea-
lously, with charity, and with an earnest desire to give no
offence to their neighbours. True, there were side by side
with them the unendowed clergy of the Roman Catholic
Church, but they repudiated the wish to possess themselves
of the property of the Established Chiirch. Asa matter of
mere feeling, he allowed that the majority of the Irish
people, professing another faith, had a grievance, but it was
not a practical grievance calling for any sweeping measure
of legislation, such as that which the mover and seconder
of the resolution had in view.

Mr. G. HARDY agreed that the maintenance of the Pro-
testant Church in Ireland was a part of the compact entered
into at the time of the union, and that the principles advo-
cated by Mr. Dillwyn, notwithstanding his profession of
loyalty to the Church of England, would be as fatal to her
as to the Irish Church. It was said by the opponents of the
latter that she was a badge of servitude. He denied it, for
the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland had perfect religious .
freedom, and enjoyed religious equality in the widest sense
of the word. By the Act of Union every Churchman in
Ireland had a vested right to find in every parish and
place a pastor, a church, and the means of grace in connec-
tion with his Church. The Churchmen of Ireland were
not to be in a different situation from that of Churchmen
in England. That, in fact, was the principle upon which
the Irish Parliament, itself a Protestant institution, had
given its assent to the Union. It was confirmed by the
Roman Catholics themselves in 1829, and it would be un-
fair and unreasonable now to turn round upon the Pro-
testants of Ireland, and tell them that they should not be
treated as Churchmen were in this country, but that an
entire separation should be made between the conditions
cf the two Churches. If there were abuses let them be re-
medied, but they had no right to take the property of the
Church for the purpose of providing a remedy ; they had
no right, as the resolution proposed, to violate—first, the
principles of the Reformation ; secondly, the Act of Set-
tlement ; thirdly, the Act of Union ; and, fourthly, the
settlement of 1829. Did they want to buy peace? It was
not by such legislation as this ; it was not by the surren-
der of a great principle that peace was to be bought. Peace
existed now in Ireland. Crime was never so low. Life
never so safe. Property never so secure. The peasantry
never so contented. And if he were told that nothing had
been done by the Irish Establishment to carry out her mis-
sion as a Church, he said that much every way had been
done by her for religion, civilisation, the health, comfort,
and good of the people.
' The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER concurred
with Mr. Hardy in his defence of the Irish Establishment,
so far as it rested upon the assertion that it did not pre-
sent such an amount of flagrant abuse as would justify a
violent interference with its existence. Its clergy were an
earnest, zealous, and devoted body of ministers, given to
their sacred functions in a degree not inferior to that of the
clergy of any other branch of the Christian Church. With
regard to its prelates, too, there were those among them
who were known to be men of great learning, the highest
possible character, and the most extensive charity both in
act and opinion. And the general effect of the evidence
was that there was great social utility in the presence of a
body of educated Christian gentlemen such as the Protes-
tant clergy of Ireland, and that if they were unhappily
precluded from ministering to the wants of their neigh-
bours in the most important respects for which they were
appointed, yet in their social and moral influence they ren-
dered valuable services to the community. All this, how-
ever, did not touch the essence of the question ; and the
object of Mr. Hardy was to put a negative not only upon
the motion, but on the proposition contained in it, that the
present situation of the Irish Church was unsatisfactory.
Now, although the Government were unable to agree to
the motion, they were not prepared to deny the abstract
truth of that part of the resolution. They could not
assert that the present position of the Establishment was
satisfactory. But it was another thing to interfere with
the exclusive endowments of a Church which, as his right
hon. friend had stated, was sanctioned by the prescription
of centuries and the Act of Union. At the same time he
could not admit that the claims of the past against the
future were to be regarded in all cases as absolute and pa-
ramount. Nor could ho subscribe to the opinion that the
dictum of a dead Parliament was to bind after generations,
because he held it to be our duty to adapt the institutions
of the country to the changing circumstances of the times.
It was an anomalous state of things that the whole of the
religious endowments of the Church should be devoted to
the wants of an eighth of the population. This was an
undoubted inconsistency ; but no one had ventured to sug-
gest the remedy that should be applied. The considera-
tion of this portion of the question raised a whole nest of
political problems ; for while the vast majority of the Irish
people were opposed to the maintenance of largo and libe-
ral endowments for a fragment of the population they repu-
diated anydesire to appropriate those endowments, and firmly
rejected all idea of receiving a state provision for themselves.
sate In these circumstances how, he asked, could the Government
substitute a satisfactory for an admittedly unsatisfactory
t
ofthings. If the Administration could see their
way to a settlement of this vexed question they
ought to
grapple with the difficulty and cast their
responsibility and influence into the scale. But if they
could not do this they ought not, by supporting the motion,
to declare that the State of the Irish Church called for their',
early attention.
SIDE concurred with Sr G. Grey that to
Mr. wniTE Sir
carry the motion in the sense of the speeches by which it
had been supported would tend to civil confusion in Ire-
land, the excitement of the worst feelin,l's, and the general
He argued that the
disturbance of society in that aait cthououngtryh
the endowments be-
*
Irish Church did not constitute a practical grievance to the
Roman Catholics, be
longed to the establishment, the Roman Catholics24,oo hada
-
£30,000 a-year for the College of Maynooth,
year for secular education, and, in addition, chaplains in
the army and navy, workhouses, reformatories, and pri_
sons, making a total money payment equivalent t0.£300,000
per annum. The right hon. gentleman also animadverted
upon the dexterous quibbles and hypocritical mystification
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, whilst he intended
voting against the motion, had made a speech in its favour,
and foreshadowed what he and his friends would do when
a more favourable opportunity occurred; and he declared
that, on the day that the Protestant Church in Ireland was
struck down, those who in that country had always sup-
ported the Crown and the honour of England would be-
come her deadly enemies, and the union would be at an
end.

Mr. G. DUFF, in supporting the motion, said that in the
speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he saw the be-
ginning of the end with the Irish difficulty.

Mr. COGAN recommended Mr. Dillwyn to withdraw the
latter part of his resolution setting forth that the question
demanded the early attention of the Government. In that
case they might reasonably expect Ministers to give it
their support.
After some observations from Mr. POLLARD-UnctintAnT
ho u
the sediavdi
and Sir F. HEYGATE,
Mr. GOSCHEN moved the adjournment of the debate.
The
jdoeud,rnwmheennt the numbers were—
F0r221
Against it
Majority —lls
The debate was adjourned accordingly.
The remaining business ha • • d
been dispose of, the
house adjourned at 20 minutes to 1 o'clock.