The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-01 00:00:00

THEATRE-ROYAL, OLYMPIC.

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Tars EVENING, at 7. PAPER WLNGS Messrs. H. Wigan,
H.ISle • tile, E. Atkins, H. Vaughan, H. Cooper. and Smithson:
sr.sda.m.s Furtado, Schavey, N. Harris. and St. Henry.-
After which THE YELLOW PASSPORT. Messrs Neville,
H. Neville, Atkins. Taylor, isughsa, Vincent, &c.; Miss Fur-
Vscly and firs CaulS4ld.
~

ROYALTY THEATRE.
Under the Management of Miss M. Oliver.
THts EVENING, at 7.30, A LOVINti CUP. Mr. Dewar, Miss
M. Oliver. To he followed by CLAUDE DUVAL; Mr. Dewar,
&c. To conclude with FAMILY JARS.

PRINCE OF WALES'S ROYAL THEATRE.
Under the Management of Miss Marie Wilton
THIS EVENING, SCHOOL: Messrs. Hare, H. J. Montague,
Addison, Glover. and Bancroft; Mrs. Buckingham White. Miss
C. Addison, and Miss Marie Wilton. After which, A WINNING
HAZARD. And INTRIGUE.

ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE AND CIRCUS, HOLBORN.
Tuts EVENING, the Great Cerre Troupe and magnificent Stud
of 50 Horses; also Onra, Alfred Bradbury, A. Carre, &c.

ST. GEORGE'S THEATRE, REGENT STREET.
This ErENING, at 8, THE ROYAL ORIGINAL CHRISTY'S
MINSTRELS' Ethiopian Entertainment: and the Burlesque
Extravaganza, THE VERY GRAND DUTCH—S.

CHRISTY MINSTRELS. St. James's Hall, Every Night, at 8
Wednesdays and tiaturdays, at 3 and 8 all the year round.

ROYAL ALHAMBRA PALACE. THREE BALLETS,
Promenade Concert. Band of GO. Begin at 8. ls. Box-office
open from 11 to 4.

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regent's-park, OPEN daily (ex-
cept Sundays). Admission, ls.; on Idcndays, 6d.; Children
utider twelve, 6d.

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w4J.21 ,yl4'

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1869.

Between the March of 1868 and the March of
1869 the Irish Church Question has been continu-

ously and more or less directly under the considera-
tion of the country and of the Legislature. Mr.
MAGUIRE'S notice of motion on the sth of Decem-
ber, 1867, was the igniting of the first spark in
what has since spread so much light and
warmth around it from that central point
for all political discussion, the Commons House of

Parliament. That notice of motion by the hon. mem-
ber for Cork may have appeared to many at the first
blush but a " trivial thing" intrinsically. It has had
" mighty contexts," however, as we all know. It has

led to the downfall of one Government and

to the installation cf another. It has nearly
doubled the previously large clear majority of
the Liberal Party. It has made the member for
Birmingham a Privy Counsellor. It has raised
Mr. GLADSTONE to the Premiership. It has brought
about one or two of the auguries of a political mille-
nium—brin ging together into harmonious corn' anion-
ship not simply the lion and the lamb—but, yet more
wonderful to tell—placing Mr.BraGHT and Mr. LOWE
cheek-by-jowl in the same Cabinet ! To Mr.
MAGUIRE'S modest notice of motion, of the date just
now mentioned, all this, and a great deal more, may
be confidently pronounced to be directly traceable-
That notice, it may yet be remembered, ran simply to
the effect that after the recess he, the member

'or CDrk, would move "That this House resolve

itself into a Committee of the whole House, with the
view of taking the condition and circumstances of
Ireland into immediate consideration." Not a sylla-
ble, there, about the Irish Church—observe ! But

it was latent, it was lurking. Originally the motion
was fixed for the 25th of February, 1868, but by
that day Lord DERBY'S resignation had been
announced. Mr. MAGI IRE was for the moment
baulked. lle had his innings, however, on the 10th
of the ensuing March. We all of us remember it.
A twelvemonth has since elapsed, but the de-
bate of four days', meaning four nights', duration
which followed immediately upon it, is but as an event
of yesterday. Some time previously the Irish Church
had, according to the familiar geological phrase,
" cropped up." It was no longer lying perdu. It
had come to the fore. Petitions had dropped in from
various parts of the United Kingdom for and against
its disendowment. Other petitions had poured in—
not quite so abundantly, but still in sufficient num-
bers to be noticeable—in favour of the project
of a Catholic university. Those signs of the times had
been visible—more and more legibly, and more and
more numerously,for three months together—namely,
from the December of 1867 to the March of 1868.
So that,when the postponed motion of the member for
Cork came forward at last, the pear was ripe for the
gathering. So ripe that the gentlest breeze
from any point of the political compass must inevi-
tably have shaken it down. But the breezes were
not by any means gentle, and came from different
points of the political compass. Wherefore—as a
thing of necessity—down it dropped.
The now Viceroy of India was then Chief Se-
cretary for Ireland. And, addressing the House of
Commons in chat latter capacity, Lord .I.llavo, in the
course of a long and laboured speech, during the dis-
cussion upon Mr. MAGUIRE'S motion, while laying
bare the project of Alr. DisriAELr's Government
for the founding in Ireland of a Roman
Catholic University, spoke of the Itegium Donum as
contemptible and insufficient—repudiated the notion
of levelling down —vaunting to the skies on the other
hand the diametrically opposite notion of levelling
up. The Ministerial programme so propounded,
elicited from the right hon. gentleman the Leader of
the then Liberal Opposition that positive and startling
declaration, in regard to the Irish Church, which every
one in the House of Commons who heard him utter the
words recognised upon the instant—which the whole
country understood perfectly well the day afterwards—
was a death-blow to the Irish Church as a State In-
stitution. Its day'had at last arrived. It had been
long anticipated as inevitable—but it had come at
length visibly and appreciably. Mr. MAGUIRE'S
motion having secured its purpose, was with-
drawn. The matter then passed into the hands
of Mr. GLADSTONE. He had significantly
enough intimated that, everything considered, "it
would be the duty of those who differed from the
Government to make a proposal, and to ask the opi-
nion of the House upon the question of the Irish Church.
Consequent upon which declaration there came his me-
morable motion before March had run out, viz., on the
30th of that month in 1868, to the effect That the
Acts relating to the Established Church (Ireland) be
read, and that this House immediately resolve itself
into a committee upon the said Acts, in order subse-
quently to move, in committee, the following reso-
lutions :

"1. That it is necessary that the Established Church of
Ireland should cease to act as an Establishment, due regard
being had to all personal interests and to all individual rights
of property.

"2. That, subject to the foregoing considerations, it is
expedient to prevent the creation of new personal interests
by the exercise of any public patronage, and to confine the
operations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of Ireland to
objects of immediate necessity, or such as involve indivi-
dual tights, pending the final decision of Parliament.
"3. TLat an address be presented to her Majesty,
humbly praying that, with a view to the purposes aforesaid,
her Majesty would be graciously pleased to place at the dis-
posal of Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the
archbishoprics, bishoprics, and the ecclesiastical dignities
and benefices of Ireland, and in the custody thereof."
Thereupon, it was, that Lord STANLEY brought for-
ward his carefully-considered amendment " to leave
out from the word House' to the end of the question,
in order to add the words: While admitting that
considerable modifications in the temporalities of the
United Church in Ireland may, after the pending in-
quiry, appear to be expedient (this House) is of
opinion that any proposition tending to the dis-estab-
lishmentor dis-endowment of that Church ought to be
reserved for the decision of a new Parliament.' "
Another Four Nights' Debate ensued upon the Re-
solutions of Mr. GLADSTONE, or rather upon Lord
STANLEY'S Amendment—the result being the rejec-
tion of that amendment by a clear majority, in air
immense House, of exactly Sixty 1 That majority