The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

JOURNALS.

The Reform Bills are gradually coming into opera-
tion.. A most important debate and division occurred
last night in the House of Commons on the Irish
Tithe Bill, on an amendment of Mr. O'Connell in
Committee. Mr. O'Connell proposed on the third
clause a reduction of forty per cent. in tithe composi-
tions, or two-fifths of the whole value of the compo-
sition. We refer to the spirited debate on this im-
portant amendment, which was carried against the
Government by a majority of 82 to 33. The effect
of this remarkable division is to extinguish 268,0001.
of the amount. The present value of Irish Tithes,
by the latest returns, is about 670,001., and it is now,
therefore, reduced to 400,000/. ! Ministers subse-
quently agreed to a second amendment of Mr.O'Connell,
exonerating all tenants or occupiers of lands in Ire-
land from the payment of any tithes whatever, and to
compel the landlords to pay the remaining three-;
fifths. As the measure must be recast to meet
these essential alterations, the consideration of all
the early clauses was postponed by Lord Althorp.
A real and practical relief is at last applied to one of
the great grievances of Ireland,—a distemper which,
in fact, affected the great mass of the people, and
greatly increased their predial tendencies. IVIr. Pou-
lett Scrope, in his recent pamphlet on the mode of
governing Ireland, states two giant evils under which
Leland has long heaved and groaned. " The first is
the domination of a Protestant Church, imposed by
right of conquest on a Catholic people, maintained
on the spoils of the ancient Catholic establishment,
and therefore necessarily looked upon by the people
both as a badge of their servitude, and a sacrilegious
usurpation of the rights of their own Church." We
have long predicted that this monstrous and unchris-
tian abuse could not long be endured. From the
context of the debate, and the ingenious remarks of
Lord Althorp, it would seem that Ministers were
reconciled to the defeat ; indeed some of their best
supporters quitted the ministerial ranks. The Tories
are becoming quite frenzied. Mr. Shaw and Mr. Lefroy
declared their chagrin, and determination to vote
against a Bill which originally received their sup-
port as a necessary evil. Mr. O'Connell, from mo-
tives indicative of his satisfaction, withdrew all further
opposition to the measure. Thus a wide breach, after
a long siege, has been made in the walls of the Irish
Church. But after all, as remarked by Mr. Scrope,
this modification of the ecclesiastical system will be
only a partial and temporary tranquillization of Ireland.
" The Protestant Church is a grievance, the tithe
system is another ; but were tithes and the Church
swept away to-morrow, the sufferings of the mass of
the people of Ireland, the insecurity of their position,
and the consequent proneness to illegal, combination
and rebellion, would be in no sensible degree mitigated."
The poor of Ireland must be provided for by the Le-
gislature, and time and education—meaning by educa-
tion something more than the mere ability to read and
write--will do the rest. From what we intimated of the
contents of the Report of the English Ecclesiastical Com-
mission, the deans and chapters, and the clerical drones
who rob the working clergy of their proper remuneration,
will be obliged to yield to the " spirit of the age."
The result of last night's division will be received
throughout Ireland with extreme interest. The Tories
will, of course, now oppore the Bill. What the Lords
will do is of little moment. If they cast out or destroy
—in effect the same—the Irish Tithe Bill, the remain-
ing three-fifths of the tax will be swamped, and Ireland
will be thus rid of the whole expense of the Hierarchy;
and the Irish Protestants must support their Church
Establishment by the " voluntry principle." Though
the existence of a Protestant Church for a Catholic
population can admit of no justification, and every
well-wisher to his country must hail the signs of its
downfall, we are far from wishing to see the Irish land-
lords reap all the advantage of the extinction of tithes.
If, however, the Lords throw out the Bill, we fear it
will be impossible to recover for the public any part of
a fund which might be beneficially applied to very use-
ful and charitable purposes. However, we must not
be too rash in condemning the Peers. They may see
that by obstinately holding out against the Bill, they
will endanger all. We shall See.-12-2 orning Chronicle.
The present state of the public business in Parlia-
ment, though not unprecedented, reflects any thing
but credit on those who so conduct the affairs of the
nation as to render it necessary to legislate upon its
most important interests either in the dog-days or not
at all. Of the Members of the House of Commons,
it is calculated that full two-thirds have left town, tired
out by the apparently interminable duration of the
Session ; while, of the House of Peers, only 27 could
be found to vote upon one of the most interesting and
important measures of the Session. Such a state of
things must be any thing but satisfactory to the
country, which thus sees its vital interests handed over
to, and hurried through by small Committees of the
Legislature, instead of being calmly considered and
discussed by the whole body. For this novel state of
things, unknown at least till within these few years,
several causes may be assigned ; among which the
late period at which the Session commences, the
eternal love of talking which infects the House of
Commons, and the practice of allowing so little of the
public business to originate in the House of Peers,
may be considered the chief. That the first of these
constitutes the main hindrance to an earlier termi-
nation of the Session cannot be doubted. Were Par-
liament to meet, as it formerly did, about the same pe-
riod as that in which the Courts of Justice assemble,
and were to adjourn for
,three weeks, or a month, at
Christmas, there is little doubt that, with proper
promptitude and pre-arrangement on the part of Go-
vernment and the different public offices, the Session
might be brought to a conclusion by the end of May,
or the beginning of June. But without the facilities
here alluded to, even this cannot be hoped for. As it
is, delay and postponement seem to be the watchwords
of every public measure. Public men, like schoolboys,
seem only anxious to postpone an unpleasant task ; as
a.striking specimen of which it is not till the end of
July that even the Budget is presented by the Finance
Minister to a House of Commons, which has been
sitting ever since the beginning of February. Though
their attendance in Parliament is the highest and most
important duty which they can have to perform, it
seems scarcely reasonable to blame Members of the
Legislature for their being driven, as it were, from the
sense of their duties before those duties are completed,
many of whom, doubtless, find, from the dilatory,
unmethodical way in which the public business is
conducted, that they have, in fact, little to do, during
a residence of five or six months in the metro

..,
polis, but to write franks and spend their fortunes,
while the really important business of the country is
delayed till they are " over the hills and far away."
It is impossible, too, not to be struck with the dan-

gerous and unconstitutional nature of a proceeding
which enables the Ministry, for the time being, to be
almost its own Parliament and its own law-makers.
Whether taken as a tired or a too willing audience.
there is no doubt that Ministers have much less diffi-

culty in getting their decrees registered at the end than
at the beginning of a Session ; and so far they are
encouraged to persist in a practice in every respect so
blamable, and at the same time so easily to be avoided.
Why does not Parliament itself take the remedy into
its own hands, either by address to the Crown, or by
regulations of its own, which might obviate its con-
tinuance ? There are Standing and Sessional Orders
of both Houses as to the periods at which the dif-
ferent stages of public Bills must occur. Why should
not the public business, subject to certain modifica-
tions, be made amenable td similar rules ? At any
rate, the evil is one at this moment of a striking and
undeniable nature ; and it is during the existence of
the disease that the remedy and the means of preven-
tion are most effectually adopted.—Morning Herald.

The discussion which took place on Tuesday night
in the House of Commons, on the motion for going
into Committee on the Irish Tithe Bill, was one of
the most extraordinary that even the present extraordi-
nary House of Commons has witnessed. Ministers
have shifted their ground upon the subject of Irish
tithe about a dozen times, with the express intention
of seeking a final position, in which they might hope,
if not for the support, at least for the neutrality and
forbearance of the leaders of the Roman Catholic fac-
tion in Ireland. The debate of Tuesday, if their folly
be not wholly incorrigible, must surely have taught