The Sun.
London, England, 1849-07-11 00:00:00

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h' l'"I' ‘v, I th'' vino. ti:cs T;., c.‘!---n- tion the Protestant j
6'l' • • .., ,-c ~ n e 0, t. .. . iIY ''''" ''` '''''' ~',1411;
Parishes he had alluded to.—(11, ar.) t'he Ir i.ii Church,
notwithstanding all the support it had received,- bid
it, failed in carrying out th, objects intended by
tt• It never would carry out that object, and he did
hot therefore see the prepriety, of keepine it up.
Refor
tea had been ateeeiptee in that Chattel', in order to
bring, it
failed mere into parlor f termer; bet themh ad ell
in Heine so. Thee r,el-rms had h, n pr •ptH ii
and carried Out by the Right Hen. B armlet the Member
f‘nr Te,mworth, end others; but they had all totally
tika. That Church was. therefore, conceived to be a
burden on the people of Ireland, and while that idea of
it prevailed among the people, there was no hope of its
ever being rendered useful to. that country. He held
that the religion of the majority of the people ought to
be the religion of the. State, and as such supported by the
State
„ ; ,1 and in support of that doctrine he quoted the
-PLatoll of Drs. Bailie, Warburton, and Arnold. It was,
however, said that as the Act of Union had made Irelandi
an integral portion of this empire, that it was the re i-
itgland,
the majority of the three kingdoms—Scotland,
wiand, and Ireland—that ought to determine what
was to •be the established religion. That, how.
eve, was not a
port proper ground to
-proceed upon,
for if they admitted the princip'e of gving the. sup-_
of the State to the religion of the majority
could
the people of England an-1 Scotland, why co_tere
they refuse to extend the same system to I
the
The present system of making the priests of t
the
I"i° was the means of causing those priests L.()
sympathise with, and to further the prejudices and op-
tions of the people, while by
jade placing the priests on an
e Pendent footing they would obviate that evil. No
;ie who•had paid any attention to the history of Ire.
land, could fail to have seen the had effects of such a
system. It was said that the Roman Catholic clergy-
trier' did not themselves respect the law; but had they
not respected the law, Ireland would have been in a dif-
lrent state from what it was at present. No doubt the
."'untail Catholics of Ireland were, as a body, disaffected,
and no wonder that they should be so, while they saw a
Church established amongst them, eating up the re-
'Courses of their country, while the great majority of the
reeve
Pople repudiated its doctrines. By appropriating the
nues of that Church for other purposes, and doing
Church
away with that sectarian feeling which, while that
Establishment existed in Ireland, would still
Prevail, they would be conferring the greatest benefit on
the people of Ireland.
Sir G. GREY—I wish to relieve at once the anxiety
4" apprehensions expressed by the Hon. and Gallant
Member for Middlesex, that the Government would, on
this occasion, move the previous question; for, however
I may differ from him in thinking that there may be
Occasions on which moving the previous question is the
Proper way of meeting the point at issue, when I look
at the circumstances under which this motion is made,e
the particular effects it may produce, and the object h
Confesses he hes in`View, I do not think this question one
Which can be .met in that manner, and, as I am not pre-
pared to entertain the Hon. and Gallant Gentleman's
plan, I consider I am justified in at once voting against
the motion..—(Hear' hear.) The Hon. and Gallant
Member warned the Government that they were not to
Congratulate themselves on the present circumstances
and condition of Irelaud. That the circumstances
and condition of that country are not such as
to offer a prospect of unmitigated satisfecion, I
e
"e"Ple regret to say I coecur with him in
Itelerliog- On the contrary, it is one which it is impos-
s,ele far any person to contemplate we huut deep pain
the motion the Honourable and Gallant Member has
brought forward the slightest hope that it would remedy
Iretasieial eves, which are the real evils at present, o'
jjavinud. or that it would facilitate her improvement
Rooollier listened with Siren eon t i the speech
I Could '4dit:e of the
Member tor Mayo (Mr. Moore), I must say
and Ge,i n•'ver but little in support ot the Honeurable
tl' - 'l'4 Cientl • , 1 •
t Coati oir.Nt email s p en. The n -
nish pulatical i.s° H ourable Gen
it is ealc,i,ei ue). says he supperta the motion because
to revive remove domestic grievance and dimi-
wth have Et u:Te°rlttlit. I, on the contrary, think it
lest thaten:eY te excite domestic discontent, _aud
in Irel rdo"tieal chsquietu te of wuich we have
netlY lornser all- at the present moment than at
aele and ,
,Period.-_(
time of 'et:tient Hear, hear.) The Honour-
,. Member occupied much of the
pressed by .uee /louse in quoting sentiments ex-
Qover43
different Members of the House and of the
to rder to an this question, and he did me the honour
toot „lee_ lee opinion I expressed in the debate which
sileeere"e 1844, adding that there had been an ominous
at
th un our
Irene th Part from that period to the present, and
Of the Tie
e time when my e
Noble Friend the Frst Lord
the Irish attire, brought forward his motion respecting
Church to this, there had never been one word
Laid teaeseuse ePeting that question within the walls of the
keep g ',act which he declared it to be his intention to
after "litua memory of Government.—( Hear, hear.) Now,
it, the all the research of the Hon. and Gallant Gentleman
lectin.Pages of Hansard, and after all his pains in col-
or hi- ,6 Passages suitable to his purpose, I must complain
Gealle-ew,a„ut of memory in return. The Honourable and
le 1,,.,ee Gentleman seems to have forgotten the debate
occasion which led to a protracted discussion. On that
...enoattnn I repeated the opinions I had expressed before
meth) ezactly such as he, in order to recommend his
ever _ll to the House, quoted them—but such as I have
eeais_ retained and now adhere to on this question—(Hear,
r)...enae. , . .
and the weiy, opinions against the policy, the justice,
°tee expediency of maintaining in Ireland, or in nay
state,
country, an Established Church endowed by the
(~ ,hat Church being the Church of the minority.
hers ries of " hear," from several Hon. Mem-
uerse. e
tutheeuret
hef• i I haverepeatdly expressed these opinions
01. e, but I now ask the Hon. and Gallant Gentleman if
contained
Ispi.telything. in this plan of his affecting the endow-
."' the Established Church, or is there any remedy
in it for that grievance? The Honourable and
posed
me to say—of a
Gallant
allow Member, in humble imitation—l hope he will
greater man than himself, pro-
i thsts following out the plan of Lord Stanley, who,
tthe
ith there were twenty Bishops in Ireland, reduced
hear t° ten, We should reduce those ten to five.—(Hear,
ddew But, does he propose there should be any en-
Owtxientl' of the Roman Catholic Church? Certainly
Li- But the five Bishops would still be endowed by
the State as the Bishops of our Established Church, and
Would enjoy the Church revenues; and, so long as they
did so, the question, which I have repeatedly expressed
'ter belief to be a question not of money but of feeling,
Would remain uneruched.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon.
and Gallant Gentleman also forg.ta the subject was dis-
Cussed at the close ot 1848. when I must do him the
justice he forgot to render to bitnBelf, in reminding him
he brought it before the House in a speech on the gene-
ral state of Ireland, and when I stated in reply to him
always expressed on this subject. But
maythe -vile wwshlile have
on this subject, ask the Hon. suit Gillant
411enleman when he accuses us o opinions
f changing our
why he (1 has change- his plan sincsinceth• n?—(Hear. hear.)
The Hon. and Gallant Gentleman talks of a compro
'nisi', but there must be twe parties to a compromise;
and I have yet to learn that he is in the confidence of
the Roman Catholics of Ireland, or that th;s plan of his
till remedy all their discontent. I must remind the
41'in. and Gallant G.-wt.-man, when he says I have
meinteimed an ominous salenee on this qu stion since
1844, that on the 29th July, 1848, I spoke as follows:
`` I stn net prepared to deny, but to affirm, that the ex-
istence of an exclusive Protestant Church in Ireland
(the Protestant Episcopalians b• iug a small minority
'.1113, ot the populatiun) is an ano.naily unjustifi able in
its origin and indeten-ible now. I know co other coun-
try an Europe in which the same experiment has been
itlntol7—in which the same attempt" has been curried out;
eene sin qcite prepared to say that the wisdom and
itsresults."
Kuit y of the attempt in Ireland must be condemned by
I will not troubie the Reuse with repeat-
, ay more of what I then expressed; but I think I
have.
asvr!id enough to exonerate myself from the charge
of tug preserved the ominous silence of which the
•
hauek, and Gallant Gentleman accused me. Looking
'Whichowever, to the speech I delivered in 1844, of
h the Hon. and Gallant Member has given partial
Ltoutea,ttoris, leaving out the pith of my opinions—I no
tio..o_t
measure myself with respect to the facility of
fisuac.,,.. , ? to redress the grievance and remedy the
adopt. eep4atned of in terms stronger than I would nos.
H. i;eel,(-'beers.) When the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir
of
~...1
.40introduced his Bill to increase the endowment
nnrsaid Oth I qualified the opinions I expressed in 1844,
towards that whilst I hailed the measure as the first step
1 did press
what had been felt to be a stigma and
the least
insult
degree
eress it on the Government to advance
• prospect of further than they could go with a
• subject has success,—(Hear, hear.) Since that time the
jest, „ov occupied much of the attention of her Ma-
fiode; Ure eminent. They have anxiously desired to
the exi tuedy for the evils of which they recognised
Members feonee, but when the Hon. Gentleman the
°F the Dee ri Mayo (Me- Moore) says the prejudices
eatisfaci p o of this country are an obstacle to the
le orY settlement of the question, and that
41.0rh Members come to this House prepared to vote
against their consciences in deference to the prejudices of
their
constituents, I must remind him that there are
Other ground* of difficulty besides those he has men
tweed. I
.. . .
tlement must remind him that one great bar to the set-
. of that coestion is the avowed, and repeated, and
determined resolution. as far as we can judge) of the
• Roman Catholic hierarch Roman Catholic clere yd, and of the great body of the
scheme by whichtheirCnhurch should be endowed.—
aity, not to consent to any
(Cheers.) W
when the Ronlean"Cantir in the same position as we were
for admission to the c°iivil4 were petitioning Parliament
were unjustly debasred, and
from which they
but I believe a mistaken, we
have a strong, honest,
feeling among the people of this
Amid, against the endowment of the
country tiff(' of Se
Roman Cett.olic Church while we
aw.t. Church protesting
Of the hierarchy and clergy of that have the great body
against such a measure.—(Hear)
thhen I feel this to
be the case I ask myself, is it wor
• opinions we may entertain, to prop Ise while, whatever
would give rise to great ani . e measure which
be's, • mosity, contention, and d
• —excite much opposition, and which, insteate of b '3;
,waccepted as a boen, would be rejected by those for :hien-
..
more then I was last year, te go into a Committee ofanh-
. Whole House with the Hon. and Gallant Member t tie)
ple the resources of the Eieeblished Church in
_lreland, and with the view of taking that mutilatinn
ultimate
an instalment, looking, as I understood him, to the
extinetiun and abelition ref that Church alto
Other I shall
the
....- nit ge into all the topics advance I by
lion. and Gallant Gentleman, but this I may say,
that with regard to trust property I am not prepared
he
diot
.. length which, accerding to him, Lori Brougham
aid di
theasYs gone by. He said the property of the Church
' Day of the Ares were • • • Mr. B. O' BORNE
y ere on the same lo sting.
'a
.' James Mackintosh said the
me thing.—(A laugh.)
Sir G. 11- li
ber LY—W hether the Hon. and Gallant Mem-
quotes the Noble Lord correctly
or not I am unable
0 say, but,; whether Lord Brougham or Sir James

Mickintosh said it, I an: rot prepared to agree to the

• -s
pre c pie et tq't • : . ;1. i ate,
preeered to d aw a len bet seen trust and private
property, and there are Acts on the statute-book which
sho +v that Parliament has exercised the right of 1 gis-
lating for trust property, and of making riseulations
with regard to it which they would not make for private
property.
At I How MEMBER—What of Lord Lansdowne?
Sir ‘4. GREY—As to Lord L .stine.
:he country matte f r toe Church, "r the Church
for the country?" I have .no he-itation in saying
I believe the Church should be made for the
country—that the only object of its establishment is to
teach religion and to watch over the formation of the
morals of the people—and that the Church which fails
in this must fail in everything el6e.—(Hear, bear.) Nor
would I rely on the sth article of the union as a bar to
the motion, any more than it was a bar en a former oc-
casion when the Noble Lord asked the House to go into
Committee on the Church Temporalities Act, though I
regard it certainly as opposit, a bar to the absolute ex-
tinction of the Established Church in Ireland.—(Hear.)
The Hon. Member said very truly, if we were allowed to
begin de novo no one would think of establishing in Ire-
land such a Church as exists there at present; but I must
recall the Hon. Member's attention to the difference be-
tvsem the original institution of a Church and a Cnurch
which has existed for 200 years The Hon. Member
(Mr. Moore) alluded to the past history of that Church,
and said was written in characters of bl ; tied,
speaking of the horrors wrtich had taken place since its
first establishment, declared they surpassed those of the
Italian inquisition. But. I could have hoped the same
feeling which made him doubt whether he had done right
in alluding to those occurrences in darker times and ages
long gone by would have induced him to pause ere he
did so, or to have at least moderated his language. I for
one think the terms used by the Hon. Member were too
strong, and I must remind him we are dealing with the
Church that now exists, not with that which existed cen-
turies ago. I must regret that, having mentioned those
topics, he did not feel it was his duty also to advert to
the conduct of the Protestant clergy, and to bear his
testimony to the untiring beneficence and indefatigable
endeavours of that body during the recent period of
famine--(" Hear, hear" from Mr. Moore)—to their de-
sires and labours to mitigate the distress of the people
without religious or party distinction, and to the good
produced by their zealous and noble exertions.—(Hear,
hear.) The Hon. Member for Middlesex stated that I
was a member of the Irish Society, having subscribed
to its funds. The Irish Society, however, is not con-
nected with the Irish Church. It is a voluntary society,
supported by voluntary subscriptions; and the Honour-
able Gentleman, being an advocate of the voluntary
system, has no right to object on his own principles to
the existence of a society whose members have tor the
object of their association how to benefit their fel-
low-creatures. I have a knowledge of its former
history, though not of its recent acts ; but I have
the strongest reason to believe that the object of
the society was to send forth men in the missionary
spirit who could speak the Irish language, and would,
by speaking the Irish language, be enabled to eon
vey aptritual and moral instruction to many of their
fellow countrymen, to whom such instruction would
otherwise be inaccessible. But if the Hon. Member
means to charge me with cherishing any sympathy for,
or giving any assistance to those who would take advan-
tage of the distress in Ireland to withhold relief from
the people except on the condition of abjuring their
faith, and who would thus be making temporal aid a
means of s-ducing them from that faith, I can only say
that I utterly repudiate any such imputation—(Hear,
bear)—and in doing so, I shall add that I have no reason
to believe that there is any member of that Irish Society.
or any pers.in connected well it, who c •ulti b. capable of
sueh conduct. The lion. Gentleman read an ex ract of
a speech delivered by some person whom he described as
an scent of that society.—(.llr. Osborne-=" A clergy
man ") I aet not responsible for that speech, and with
the sentiments I cannot profess the slightest sympathy.
Th. Hi nourable Genticm in also teed a letter pur
portin s to be frem the Lord Lieutenant of Irelatel,
in which it was said that the loyalty of the
Catholics was not to be trusted." I believe the Lord.
Lieutenant said no such thing. The Hen. Gentleman
did not mention the date of that letter. He is a
person of so much research that it is impossible to follow
him through all the documents he has quoted.—(A
laugh.) But, from all my intercourse with the Lord-
Lieutenant, there is no person, I am convinced, less
likely to express such a sentiment ; and I believe his
opinion to be, as it is the opinion of myself and others,
that there is a general spirit of loyalty and attachment
towards the Sovereign of this realm pervading the great
body of the people of Ireland—(Hear, hear)—with cer-
tain exceptions, which have now, I hope, ceased to
exist. Ido not think that I need enter into a defence
of the Established Church of Ireland. That may well
be left in the hands of the Honourable Member for the
University of Dublin (Mr. G. A. Hamilton), who will
take grounds, however, which I should not, gene-
rally speaking, be able to take. But I was anxious
to re-state my opinions on the question which the
Honourable Member for Middlesex has raised, and to
remind the House of the great and paramount, diffi-
culty which exists with respect to the terms on which it
can be settled ; and, till we can reasonably hope to be
able to propose a measure to Parliament which shall
carry out those views, I do not think it the duty of the
Government to fellow a course which could only have
the effect of leading to interminable discussions and
acrimonious debates. For these reasons I shall vote
against the motion. The Hon. Gentleman alluded to the
absence of my Noble Friend (Lord J. Russell). It is
owing to domestic causes which left him no alternative.
—(Hear, hear.) But for that circumstance, it was his
full intention to have been present.
Mr. E. B. ROCHE observed, that the Right Hon.
Baronet, admitting that the Established Church of Ire-
land was a great injustice, argued as if that injustice
would be done away with by establishing another
Church. The state of the Irish Church had always been
the great grievance on which the movement for the re-
peal of the union rested. On what ground did those who
defended it take their stand? On the ground that re-
ligious truth ought to be maintained. But those who
argued so were parties to establishing Hindooism in
India, the Catholic religion in Malta and Canada, the
Presbyterian Church in Scotland How, then, could
they say that their object was to establish re-
ligious truth? Having sanctioned those various
establishments in deference to a majority of the
Irish
iesl3ohrupte
Cori
h,Btpnhu;doerrictfht:
people in each instance, they yet established
gholrnweBoau2a
of
snCddh
.ufroecfnhd
prdoe f?loc
fy c minority.htha
gailontis smthaeelffilticusieen arltesWtlhalse
Protestantstestantots Roman Catholics Cthaethco,,litchsowiha.ss
the P ro
as 3to l2f. In a work publiiihed by the Ecclesiastical
History Society, reprintbeim.-'
of
the Cumin-in Prayer
Book, originally introduced
f the use of the Irian
Church. gross ignorance was imputed
that Church. and the editorremarkedttho
t clergymennu of
provision hid Leen made fur
the liioroZrutable
Com-
mon Prayer cireulwed in the Irish tongue, or fir :quiring that clergymen should speak the vernacular; it
having bren en toted that the Book of Common Prayer
should be read only in English or Latin. On the one
hand, there was a people speaking the Irish language;
on the other, a Church established which pesitiv.ly
enacted that no Irishman shoeld be el« ct, d to a cure till
p oclamatiou had been made three times to see whether
an Englishman could bi- got. It was making men prac-
tical he peeritee to compel them to bullpen a Church
whose dogmas they.believed untrue, and whose preach-
ing tney thought unsound. Was it on political ground:
that t 4.1 Cuurch established in Ireland could be de-
fended? Certainly that Church had not been the means
of procuring tranquillity. It had been said that the
Protestants went to Ireland with a sword iu one hand
and a Bible in the other. They drew the sword, but
forgot to open the Bible. They had distinguished them-
selves more by confiscations than by concessions. And
what had constantly been the cause of agrarian disturb-
ances? It was to the injustice of the tithe system that
Rock, and Starlight, and.•the Peep-o'-Day Boys owed
their origin:— .. •

"-As long a; Popish spade and scythe
Shall dig and cut the Sassenach tithe,
And Popish purses pay the tolls
On Heaven's road for Sassenach souls;
As long as millions shall kneel down
To ,ask of thoaaands for their own;
So long the happy reign shall be
Of Captain li)ck and his family !"
The ChurCh of Ireland had further been made odious as
a political engine; and the great body of the Irish people
had made up their minds that, by some means or other,
so great a practical abuse as that Church should be
abated.

Mr. G. A. HAMILTON, while he could not approve
of the views stated by the Right Hon. Gentleman the
Secretary for the Home Department, must make his
acknowledgments for the intimation of the Right Hon.
Gentleman's intention to meet the motion by a decided
negative.—(Hear, hear.) No policy could be attended
by more fatal consequences than any weakness on the
part of the Government with reference to the subject of
the Church at that time. He regretted that the question
had been raised by the Hon. Member for Middlesex—
not that he shrank from the argument, but that since
1834—since discussions on the same theme had, as it
were, by common consent been abandoned, the acrimony
of political feeling and religious controversy had been
mitigated, and the revival of either was to be deprecated.
The Hon. Member objected to the inertness -of the Irish
Church at a former period,' and now that it was active he
said that it was promoting hypocrisy.. It would be
his (Mr. Hamilton's) duty to. point out what had been
done towards correcting the abuses in the Irish Church
to which the Hon. Member had particularly adverted,
anti he would pledge his character upon the accuracy of
any statements he• might • make. One of the primary
grounds of complaint against the Church in Ireland was
the existence of pluralities. Many Hon. Members ima-
gined, perhaps, that pluralities existed to a great extent
in thelrishCnurch, and that there were no means of cor-
recting the abuse. Li 1834 the number of pluralities in
the Irish Charon was 81; in 1843, the date of the last
return, the .somber had been reduced to 34.—( fear,
hear.) The
.process of reduction was still in progress.
No fresh pluralities could be created except through a
faculty granted by the Primate t) Ireland, and no such
faculty had been granted since 1828. In point of fact,
the system of pluralities was fast disappearing under
the aaiwnistration of that distinguished Prelate. Sine-
cures iurnisned another ground of c,implaint against the
Irish Church; but under the Church Temporalities Act
and subsequ.nt Acts ample prevision was made for the
correction of that abuse. Another defect in the establish-
ment upon which its opponents laid great stress was the
existence of .union'. It, was true that the existence of
unions was an abuse which once.prevailed to a great ex-
L--lit in Ireland. but it had been abated b the operati.in
of the Church Temp walities Act, e hich invested the
Lord-Lieutenant in Council with p•iwer to diasolve
unions. No fewer than 53 unions had been dissolved
since -1833_ Some. few unions yet remained, because
they were indispensable under the existing circumstances