The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-15 00:00:00

way to Heaven in tb best manner he could, and paying
any minister he pleased. The Noble Lord propsed to
repay this money by a land.tax. Was an incoming tenant
to be liable or the landlord ?

Lord ALTHORP said that the charge would he on all
the land of Ireland. In the case supposed by the Hon.
Gentleman, he admitted that injustice would be done.
The tenant certainly who hail refused to pay tithes would
escape the payment, and the charge must be paid by the
land.—( Hear, hear.)
Mr. FINN further contended, that in fact the landlord
would pay nothing, his power was so great over the
tenants. He complained of a part of the last Composition
Act, by which the clergy were enabled in May to demand
tithe of potatoes that were then scarcely sown.
Mr. GISBORNE said it was said, when the plan last
year was brought forward, that to transfer the debt to the
Crown would put an end to all difficulties, and that the
people would then have no objection to pay.—(Cheers.)
That was a prediction which had not been verified.—
(Cheers.) The Crown had made the people its debtors,
but the arrears of tithe were not paid.—(Hear.) The
Crown, then, had not succeeded. `►as it fair, then, to
place the landlord of Ireland in the situation of tithe-
proctor ; and was he to be made to collect the tithe which
the Crown could not collect? All these alterations were
a mere juggle, and they left the greater grievance un-
touched.—(Hear, hear, hear.) That grievance was, that
the Roman Catholics were obliged to support the Pro..
testant Church—( Hear, hear, hear)—and it would net be
removed by these resolutions. Out of that House,
every person he met or spoke with was of opinion
that an alteration of the law was necessary as to
the Irish church. He might even go further, end say
that they all thought it ought to lie put an end to.—.
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) He knew a gentleman who
was f g to another at a public school, and strongly did
he remember the discipline he received there, that he
never met the gentleman, under whose dominion he had
been, without fancying he was still a fag. So it appeared
to be with this Government ; they had been so long under
the dominion of the Tories, that they could not reconcile
their present emancipation, and had a most unwholesome
deference and respect to Tory feeling—(Cheers)—and
their first cry was, on all occasions, Wbat will the Tories
think of it?—(A laugh.) Try, however, what they
would, he believed they could not avoid a collision. When
a collision came, as be believed it must come, he hoped
that House would act with fiimness—(Louil cheers)—
and also with temperance.—(Hear.) He should vote for
this measure, however, not because he supported it on its
merits, but because he looked on it as an instalment of
6s. Bd. in the pound, and because he believed the other
instalments must of necessity follow.—(Heir.)
Mr. SHAW—The Han. Gentleman had said that his
object was to destroy the church of Ireland ; he hoped the
Government would learn a lessen from this, when the
Hon. Gentleman stated that with this view he supported
the Bill. He did not often touch on a subject which had
been frequently adverted to by hi; Hon. Friend the Mem-
ber for the University of Oxford—he meant the King's
coronation oath—(ol,, oh, and Hear)—but though he
differed from his lion. Friend on that point in some
respects, yet, with regard to any measure which attacked
the support and maintenance of the Irish church esta-
blishment, he would say that no man of common sense,
common honour, or common honesty, could recommend
Ministers to advise the Crown to any measure which, by
destroying the Irish church, should violate the act of
union and the coronation oath.
Mr. GISBORNE was willing to put common sense
out of the question, but he trusted that the Hon. Member
did not mean to apply the words common honour and
common honesty to him.
Mr. SHAW disclaimed applying thewords
and offensively ; but he would repeat, that if any Minister
of the Crown gave such advice to his Majesty as would
lead to the destruction of the Irish church, he was neither
possessed of common honour, nor honesty.—( Hear.) He
differed very much from the Hon. Gentleman who wished
employ a clergyman as he would employ a lawyer or
doctor ; and who wished to go to Heaven his own way,
just as he would choose any hackney-coach from a stand
to carry him to his lodgings.—(A laugh.) Upon the
whole, he should not object to the plan of Lis Majesty's
Ministers.

Mr. LITTLETON expressed great surprise at the

speech of the Hon. Member for Derbyshire. -He had not
yet complete returns, but he would take that opportunity
of laying before the House, as nearly as possible, what was

the result of the Act of last session. The gross amount of
arrears of tithe due for 1831 was 105,6931., from this
there were some deductions, which made the net amount
104,2851. Of this, proceedings had been instituted to
recover 83,3541. The amount of arrears for which no
proclamations were issued, or, if issued, subsequently sus-
pended, was 20,931/. Of this 83,354/. for which pro-
ceedings were taken, 12,100/. only had been recovered.
Such had been the result of the Act of last year.
What course could the Crown then adopt after this
successful opposition to the law ? He knew none, unless
it were some measure of adjustment similar to tbat
proposed by his Noble Friend. Under the Act of last
session, the tithe was received in small sums, and from the
tenantry, the largest portion of whom were Roman Catho-
lics, and, consequently most hostile to the payment of
tithes. But in the present case, it would be levied,
not from the tenants, but from the landlords—(Hear,
hear)—and, consequently, from a much smaller number
of persons, not, perhaps, more than as one to fifty. Much
bad been said about the harshness of the clergy in collect-
ing their tithes—he thought that hardly fair ; there ap-
peared to he as much harshness on one side as the other,
and perhaps the lay impropriators had been more rigorous
than the clergy, whilst there was the less cause for so
doing, for with the former tithes did not constitute their
whole property, which was most frequently the case with
the latter.—(Hear, bear.) He denied, in opposition to
the statement that had been made, that Government had
permitted the military to be resorted to for the purpose
of serving process for tweets of tithe due only at May last.
Major BEAUCLERK said that, in his opinion, the
speech of the Hon. Member for Derbyshire was one of
the most sensible he had heard in that House for some
time. and. however it might be received within those walls,
would produce a great effect out of that House.—(Hear,
hear.) It was, in his opinion, very unfair of the Go-
vernment to throw u;;on the Irish landlords debts which
they had never contracted. Government would have acted
much more fairly, if out of the 3,000,000.. which they
promised that House from the church temporalities, tl.ey
had undertaken to pay these arrears.—(Hear.)
Dr. BALDWIN declared that the attempt of Ministers
to shift the tithe from the tenant to the landlord, would
only have the effect of combining the tenantry and land-
lord together for the purpose of getting rid of the tithes,
and indeed of the church altogether.— (Hear.)
Mr. JOHN MURRAY remarked, that if any plan could
be discovered which was likely to be injurious to the cause
of the established church in Ireland, it was a measure
founded upon the indefeasible rights of that church.
Mr. BELLEW thought that the Ministerial measure
left untouched the principal grievance of which the Ca-
tholics in Ireland had to complain—the undue proportion
of ecclesiastical property which was assigned to the support
of the Protestant establishment.
Mr. CHAPMAN was of opinion that the system of
combination would only be increased by the Ministerial
plan.

Mr. TALBOT said an important, mistake had been
committed both by Ministers and by a great part of that
House, in supposing that the amount of the tithes was
considered the principal grievance. It was not the amount
of tithes, hut the appropriation of thein.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. DOMINICK BROWNE said Ireland would never
be contented, in his opinion, until the Catholic Church could
resume that proportion which he had mentioned of the
revenues which formerly belonged to it. Though a Pro-
testant, he considered that every man in Ireland was
disgraced by the perpetuation of a system which placed so
large a portion of the Irish people in a state of such infe-
riority with respect to the support of their religious
opinions. He was sorry to see that no Catholic Member
came forward to claim the rights which his church dis-
tinctly possessed. He was not a Catholic, but he looked
upon himielf as a representative of the Irish people in
general.—( Hear, bear.)
Sir HUSSEY VIVIAN said, that though the numbers
of the Protestants in Ireland were much smaller than
those of the Catholics, yet the property in the hands of the
Protestants was considerably greater ; se that it was Pro-
testant property after all which paid the greater portion of
the tithe that was applied to the support of the Protestant
church.
Mr. FINN explained.
Mr. FINCH considered the church establishment of
Ireland to be one of the noblest insti,utions in the world.
He should certainly vote for the resolutions, but he did so
with pain, as he felt that it was only a choice of evils.
Mr. WARD would also vote for the resolutions.
Mr. EDWARD RUTH VEN, as the representative of
a large Catholic constituency, felt himself bound to resist
any aitempt to make that constituency support the minis-
ters of a Protestant church.
Mr. A. LEFROY supported the resolution.
Colonel CONOLLY begged, in common with every
man who was anxious for the safety and welfare of the
established church in Ireland, to express his gratitude to
the Noble Lord for the boon which he was confetring on
that church by these resolutions. It would relieve a large