The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-04 00:00:00

lerartee beating an unnatural .sway ! Even then I never
despaired of the good old cause—l never turned away iron
the cap' of liberty; evert when it hung upon a bush, or wasiftritedl to the scaffold. Surely I will not now, when it
should eurreintinf the Orowes—the Crown that was fabeieated
for its support and maintenance. I [rev stettd alone. but I stand
undismayed; Ihavehonestlyandfearless.ydeliseretltnr opinions,
the opinions of my whole life. and upon which the public eon-
dest of thirty years has been invariably frerned. I stand
erilt9teg the epthemoral supporters of an ephemeral, though an
eriorttieW alAtisN: Hit- we day is fast aparoaehing, when their
eyes will be uucelfe'lf en 4 my principles bear sway—whet
truth, because it is truth, will preetail-nsend right, because it f-
right, triumph ; for the prineiplee *lie ? have declared ar.
founded in eternal justice, and' adopted by- the under-
. standings, and engraved upon the hearts, of melee o'
the people.
Lord FITZGERALD said there were psrts of the No-
ble and Learned Lord's speech calculated to be so alarming
to the House and to the country that before he spoke on the
subject immediately under consideration he begged to make
one or two citurrvations on them. The Noble and Learned
Lord had ridiculed Mr. Pitt',; argument, and having done so
451 as eel that in his opinion there ought to he ne Eetahlished
(Ja+ 44 ,Ireland. If he thought so, why in 1829 did he re-
main silent when the Roman Catholic Relief Bill was re-
commended as a Memo calculated to give security to the es-
tablishment—to afford prZ`tection to the Protestant establish.
reeet in Ireland?—(Cries Hear.") When they were
dispad to give their most careful ennsideration to the pre
sent measures doubting whether their Lepc that it would
tend to the restoratioP of tranquillity were not more than
counterbalanced by their feeee of the evil consequehees that
reAtirt result, it might have been surely more becoming in
the " eitiessn, the senator, the statesman, god one who had
been MinisierseeiCheers)—if he bad treaeed this question in
another temper, with greater fairness, and not with an appa-
rent disposition to excite against the Bill, not this House.
beaten" the Noble and Learned Lord had confessed he stood
alone here, hot the people out of doors. He would not
raise a question to the proposed remission ; but when the
Noble and Learned Lord :said that that was a sufficient argu-
' regent with him not to proceed further, he must remind him
that free Bills which received the assent of this House, and
which receiml the support of the Noble end Learned Lord
contained a similar preposition. In 1835 a Bill teas, sent up
from the House of ComniOna, which remitted the whole sum
046, up to that time, had been paid to the titheownere in
Leieflti, end applied the whole that remained of the million'
to remit 074 Arrears of 1834. In a subsequent Bill 600,0004
was remitted.
.k-ord BRO UG H A M-1 ?;ran not in office at the tiate, and
had nar.s'nß. to do with that
Lord Fl'! ZOgRALD—The Noble Lewdest:is not in Office,
but he was exercising she duties of senator, of statesmen,
tt!t4 citizen ; he was not itnr,ster, but he was taking part
in tfre d;..extssion ; and when this House inserted an amend-
ment vrhietideereseted the Ministers in another place, the Noble
and Learned lAA hue one who predicted that the pro-
gress of the Bill weak, tem in consequence impeded else-
eletee. and he warned them of the situation of the Irish
Church, et•%tieh he said would be liable fur the repayment of
the money adviillejt4e and he also observed that they would
have hone but Ode Ottt friends and patrotre to thank for the
embarrassment into ed7feb thel would be plunged. The
Noble and Learned Lord said alio that, he would not consent
to any Bill that did not contain the principle aof appropriation,
but he fomented to the Bill introduced by Earl Grey's Govern-
nista; SYbielt did not contain that principle. He would surely
feel that Mote just and eternal principles of which he had
spoken were nd lest valid and, ;n his mind, not less predomi-
nant then than they Inefe zit present—( Cheers)—yet he ( Lord
Vesey Fitzgerald) must itgellt remark that in the Bill to which
fig wee adverting no such provisidn was to be found. It was
not his illteetion to raise that question on the present occasion ;
he should have Ile ttn content to follow the example of the Noble
Viscount, who did not: etelserress the present question by the
test allusion to the principle of appropriation ; but, as it had
heen refefeed to by the Noble and Learned Lord, he thought
it would not tie' IPSeeming in those who had successfully resisted
the insertion of the Cidt.4.sei to allow the matter to pass with-
eot a single remark. list ifat. not one who thought that the
sliglitest reproach attached td tiie Nothe Lords opposite for
their abandointent of a principle which would bane stood in
the way of their inifiehipte adoption of any measure of which
it formed a part ; he trusted that the present measure would
ensure peace, and he congratulated the Noble Lords eppaeite
on the course they had adopted. The Noble Viscount had
adverted to the principal points of the Bill; the first of which
was the relinquishment of the claim on the part of the country
to 900,0001. With respect to the million, he confessed that
so far was he from desiring that the Church of Ireland should
be benefited by that sum being exacted from the large body of
contributors to the public taxes, that there was no part of' the
Bill to which he felt greater repugnance, and to which he bad •
given his consent more reluctantly than that which, in the pur-
chase of the remission, interfered with the rightful and just
claims to property. It would have been much more accepta-
ble to him, and he believed to ether of their Lordships, if the
Bill had left to those who had fights of property the option of
accepting this rateable payment rtthith was to be assigned to
them, or that of endeavouring to reCOYur what they wei e
entitled to by the law of the land. It Went against his
feelings to compel parties to relinquish their just rights.
With a desire to give the measure dos, introduced the best
chance of success, it had been felt that to continue proc'ted-
ings for the recovery of tithes after tithes and tithe compo-
sition should be changed into a rent- charge would he ex-
tremely objectionable.—( Heer, hear.) He trusted that the
Clsrgy of Ireland would feel that it was not from indifference
to their interests that that House acquiesced in the propo-
sitions contained in the 13i11 sent up from the other Houtc of
Parliament.—( Hear, hear.) He had reason to believe that
the course now taken bad the sanction of those heads of the
Irish Church who were near enough to be consulted on the
subject.—( Hear, hear.) lie now came to the next point ad-
verted to by the Noble Viscount, when he stated the grounds
on which had been introduced the clauses for re-opening and
revising the compositions for tithes made under former Acts
of Parliament, and he ( Lord Fitzgerald) would here at once
state that when the House went into Committee on the Bill he
should move the rejection of these clauses, which had been
so vaguely, as he might say—( Ilear)—sepported by the Noble
Viscount, and propose the insertion, in their stead, of e!auees
introduced by their Lordships when in Committee on forrnee
Tithe Bills. To proceed. The Noble Viscount had, in very
general terms, recommended that power should be given un-
der the Bill to open and revise the compositions: made under
Mr. Goulburn's Act and under Lord Stanley's Act. Thoie
who heel not read the Bill or examined the clauses which it
contained, and which were t > effect this object of the Noble
Viscount, would hardly believe the nature, and extent, and
oppression of the clauses, defended in such very vague and
general terms by the Noble Viscount.—( Hear, hear.) Noble
Lords wore aware that the compositions under the Act of
1822 were voluntary, were compositions to which the tithe-
owner and the tithepayer were necessarily contracting parties,
were made by the common agreement of the parties as to the
amount of composition rent. In very few • instances. when
compared with the number of compositions made under this
Act, had it been found necessary to call in any arbitrator, or
to have recourse to any Commissioners to settle the amount.
That Act gave the power of appeal against the amount of
composition, and when he stated !het the timber of composi-
tions effected under this Act was 1,505, and that in only
thirty-nine instances had there been appeals lodged from
titheowners and from tithepayers, the Howse would feel
that' there must have been a very general acquiescence in
Ireland in the compositions made under this Act. —( He ir. )
Further, it was to be stated that of 39 appeals, IS were with-
drawn as irregular and informal, leaving 24 to lie tried. Of
these 24,.18 were beard in the Privy Council, and six were
referred to the Judges of Assize ; and in three only of the
whole number was the amount appealed against reduced. To
admit in the present Bill any clause which should give the
power of opening these compositions would be against every
dictate of justice and sound reason.--( Hear, hear.) Before
lie sat down he wished to advert to another todie. On all oc-
casions for some time back the wealth and resources of the
Irish Church had been grossly exaggerated. Since he had
been a Me nbcr of theLegislaturehe had heard statements
made on this subject so extravagant and outrageous that even
their authors would be ashamed to repeat them, now that the
public had arrived at a better :ot juster view of the revenues
of that much-maligned Church.-_( Hear, hear.) A Bill in-
trodue 'd in the other House provided for the suppression of no
fewer than 800 benefices in Ireland, on theground that they were
not called for by the state of Protestantism in that country.
lie ( Lord Fitzgerald) wag of opinion that the present Bill
was calculated to he of much service. As to the Irish Church
establishment, he did not feel it necessary for him to enter
into any defence of it.—( Hear, hear. ) The Church had been
derisively entitled the United Church of Great Britain and
Ireland, but let it be remembered that this was a title which
it received in virtue of that comp ,et under which Parliament
now legislated for Ireland—(Hca... bear)—of that compact
which legislatively united two countries bound to each other
be mutual ties of the highest interests.
Lord BItOUtWIIAM explained at some length.
The Earl of \VICK I.° '‘V said that it was 'really a master
of surprise to him that the Noble Viscount did not think it
necessary to explain why this Bill was only now before'the
House, when it was notorious that it might have been passed
any one year since 1835, if the Gevernmem had thought fit
(Hear.) If this was the case, why had the Noble Viscount aid
his colleagues permitted the unhappy state of things to con-
tinue so long ? Why had he sufferedsthe evils to g'o on in.
creasing ? Why had so much blood been shed during this pe-
riod? Why lead-so many outraees been permitted to be com-
mitted ? Why had tranquillity been so constantly disturbed,
and the Church of Ireland, as well as that of this country,
placed in jeopardy—all of which could have been prevented,
if the Government had thought proper to introduce a measure
like this for the settlement of the question ? The main prin-
ciple of this Bill was introduced in the ineaiure of Si; Robert
Peel in 1835, and in that brought furward by Lord Stanley
in 1836, and it was then violently opposed, as being unsatis-
factory. • An awful responsibility rested on her Majesty's
Government for the course they had- pursued, and it was the
duty of the Noble Viscount to reconcile his conduct, if he
could do so, with any sense of justice and consistency.—
( Ilear, hear.) Ile had expected that the Noble Viscount
would have said something to Ilse effect that it was true
that in former Sessions he had advocated the prineiVe
of appropriation, and that a certain part of the revenues of
the Church in Ireland should be devoted to secular pur-
poses ; that he still continued to maintain that principle ;
but that as he saw that even at his council board and in his
Cabinet revolution prhiciples had been avowed, and that mem-
bers of that body had even openly declared that they wonlc.
riot be satisfied with the adoption of that principle, but that
one member of it in particular openly advocated the subversion
of the Established Church and an establishment of Popery in
its place; that .this person, not satiL±icd with giving this
opinion in the Cabinet, 12,1 openly avowed it its his place iu