The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-01 00:00:00

IRISH TITHES BILL.

On the order of the day being read for the House to resolve
itself into Committee on this Bill,
Mr. O'CONNELL said he wished to call the attention or
the House to a po ton of the subject which was not
involved in the present Irish Tithes Bill, Bill, but which
was very pressing upon a large portion of the inhabitants of
Ireland. This Bill applied to the agricultural parishes in Ire-
land, but did not apply to parishes in cities and towns where
the clergyman was paid by an impost in the nature
of ministers' money. The agricultural parishes were
relieved to the amount of 40 per cent., and he wished those
other parishes to be put on the same ooting. It would be
an extraordinary state of thino that the Clergyman,
who had just left a mile out of a town, should
still receive his income, with a certain reduction
whilst within the town the clergyman should be compelled to
collect his money from house to house, and from cabin to cabin
without reduction. He did not mean to press the subject this
session, but he hoped that it would be considered next session.
Mr. LITTLETON said he believed that an arrangement
similar to that adopted in the present Bill would be very much
in favour of the town clergymen, as he believed that within the
last two or three years they had collected less than 60 per cent.
It was thererefore desirable that the matter should be placed
on a different footing. The payments, however, were so ex-
tremely small that he did not know in what other less objec-
tionable measure it could be raised.

Mr. O'CONNELL said he believed that in the report of
the Commissioners upon the Corporate Inquiry if not totally
forgotten or gone to sleep, it would be recommended that in
each town all the taxes should be levied by one body of per-
sons, and by one collector, which would greatly lessen the
present expense of collection.
The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the
the whole House on the Tithes (Ireland) Bill ; Mr. BERNAL
in the Chair.
On the motion that the clause be read,
Mr. GOULBURN rose and said, that he had hitherto
taken very little part in the discussions on the Irish
Tithe Bill, brought in by the Right Honourable Genttle-
man opposite, nor should he have now called the atten-
tion of the House to these claims, but that they involved a
principle contrary to sound policy and justice. He (Mr.
G.) was ;surprised that the Right Hon. Gentleman should
have put these clauses into the hands of Honourable Members
without at least stating the grounds on which he called upon
Parliament to take a course, which, in his recollection of
Parliamentary annals, had never been taken by any Minister
of the Crown. The present Bill called upon the House to revise
an agreement entered into under the sanction of an act
of Parliament, seven years ago ; an ag.eement entered
into with the full consent of both parties, and which
had been unappealed against in the mode pointed out by the _
act, for rectifying any errors that might occur ; an agreement
he might add, which had given universal satisfaction to both
parties. (There was here a good deal of noise in the body of
the House.) If House would only give him (Mr. G.) its at-
tention, and if the Hon and Learned Member (Mr. O'Connell)
would only lend him his silence for a few minutes he should be
enabled to satisfy the House that these clauses cannot pass.
In 1823 Parliament, feeling the diffi :ulties in which the
parties having an interest in tithes in Ireland were placed,
and anxious to promote a settlement, passed a law by
which a power was given to the incumbents of parishes to
agree with their parishioners for a term beyond their ineum.
bency, namely, 21 years, for a composition to be taken in lieu
of tithes. The law provided that the pa ishioners should, ar-
range those matters in Vestry, and to appoint a Commissioner to
take care of their intere3ts. The composition was then to belaid
before another vestry, and a right of appeal was given
(LEFT SPEARING.)