The Sun.
London, England, 1835-07-24 00:00:00

ing, adventurous, and selfish enemies to it; anti, in the se-
cond place, for placing it on that, high and stable ground of
utility and permanency that was at once conducive to the
cause of religion, morality, and good order.—( Loud cheers.)
That proposition he, for one, would cordially support, be-
cause it was a wise, a beneficial, a statesmanlike proposition--
it was a proposition of peaca and of public benefit, and be-
cause he was resolved to resist at all hazards what was dan-
gerous ani ill-judged in the Bill, while he would be satisfied
to adopt whatever was sensible, salutary, or useful in it. It
was not triumph, it was justice—it was truth—it was the
public good he looked to ; this was what' he sought for, not
the petty victory of a party, for a season.—( Cheers.) He
heard it stated on the other side of the House, particularly
by his Right Hon. Friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
we understood), and he heard it with a surprise almost
amounting to incredulity, that the speech of the . Right Hon.
Baronet evaded the real question—that the question was not
fairly dealt with, and that the speech aimed at carrying the
audience to a conclusion different from what its words and

bearings would warrant--that it meant one thing and stated
another. He lamented to witness either this obliquity of in-
tellectual vision, which could not see a distinct proposition in
its .proper light and form, or the sinister tendency of party,
that would distort and misrepresent it.—(Loud bursts of
applause.) If ever there was a speech delivered within
that House or without it, bringing `home the force of demon-
stration to the mind of even the most sceptical ; beating down
every, even the remotest, attempt at refutation ; combining
mathematical calculation in its most enlarged scope, yet de-
cending to the minutest particulars, with the most consummate
logical skill and power of rhetorical argumentation, it was that
speech—(Cheers)—a speech that travelled in a chain of the
most even, consecutive, and best-regulated induction—in a ca-
tegory of undoubted facts—step by step, to the conclusion, not
merely winning, but forcing, conviction, upon the most reluc-
tant mind, whose invincible obduracy did not close every open-
ing to conviction, and carrying conscience and judgment along
with it, where conscience and judgment were to be found—
( Loud cheering)—a speech that at once showed the mind of
a master, throwing off the exuberance of his knowledge, and
quelling incredulity itself into reluctant, but tacit—he re-
. .

grettedit was tacit—acquiesconce in his details and his infe-
rences, his premises and his deductions. —( Renewed cheering. )
It was a speech worthy of the best and brightest days of our
senatorial oratory, and was one that showed that statesman-
ship in its most philosophical, and, at the same time, in its most
practical, shape, was' not yet extinct amongst us.—(Checr-

ing.) To that speech where wag the answer? There was
none, for there eauld to none. It was founded on the rock of

truth, and by It the eddies of party acrimony would sweep
without harm. It laid down premises which were truisms,
and not desired by those whose jaundiced vision saw every-
thing through a discoloured maw% or whose passions, or
prejudices, or; it tiduht be Interest, would lead them to
mis,r6.pmiont, or doubt, or deny—that speech, if there
was sincerity or honesty in the House should &Ode the ques-
tion of appropriation ; for itsproultaa4 WOV no less .ques-
tionable than were PclfichiPangi just and tr7-c.—( Cheers.)
If his Al+4)7'4 (4Qweirhillrht wished t° "avoid absurdity and in-
justice, if they wished to their own principles in de-
fending the churels.., they
wished only for reform and not
destrUctiOn, they would separate the Bill into two parts.—
hoar.) The propositions contained in the Bill were
istinot and separate. Why, then, in conitnon fairness and
common' justice,.and in respect for the common ggod, which
they professed to have so much at heart, should they blend
propositions that were inconsistent with each other? When

the question'of appropriation was on a former occasion before
the House, Lord Althorp and his colleagues had twenty times
over declared that the two questions were different. They
declared that one part of the Bill was for vindicating the law,
and the other for the prospective purpose of securing-the in-
dependence and integrity of the Church. The Noble Lord,
when introducing the Bill to the House, stated that it con-

sisted of two distinct parts—one for the regulation of tithe
property, the other for the regulation of the Church. He
(Lord Stanley) did not introduce this subject to the notice
of the House for the purpose of attacking the general policy
of the Bill as a whole, but of bringing its proper cha
racter, in its two separate forms, before them, and ena-
bling them to adopt what was good in it, and reject what
was bad—that was, reject the appropriation clause. He
thought that he had been well acquainted with the nature
of the proposition they were called upon to decide. The re-
solution moved and carried was that any surplus funds should
be applied to the purposes of the moral- and religious educa-
tion of the people of Ireland. If there were one ground more
ligitimate than another for adopting the proposition of the
Right Hon. Baronet he thought it enunciated in that resolu-

To that proposition, oil the very principle of its own
resolution, he thought the House should come. Had the
House heard the speech of his Noble Friend the Member for
Northumberland ( Lord Howick), and the speech of the Noble
Lord opposite (Lord Morpeth), and would it say that, accord-
ing to those speeches, any surplus revenue would be applied
for the benefit of the moral and religious education, of the
people of Ireland? When on a previous occasion they had
been aruing the abstract principle of appropriation, he had
inquired what would be considered a surplus? The only per-
son competent to give him an answer was the Hon. Mem-
ber for Tipperary ( Mr. Shell), who obligingly informed him
that it was a surperplus. For the life of him, until then, he
had not been able to obtain an explanation.—( Loud laugh-
ter.) That, however, which .he was most anxious to learn
was, whether they were to adhere to the principle laid down
in the resolution, or whether the Hon. Gentlemen opposite
had determined plainly to state that, surplus or no surplus, they
would appr4riate.,--CCheers, and a cry of Oh-i" from some
Hon. Member.) lie liked that exclamation from the oppo-
site side of the House. lt induced him to believe that some
Hon. Gentlemen yet might be found open. to conviction who
had been previously labouring under the amiable delu-
sion that a surplus existed.—( Cheers.) His Noble Friend
opposite in the course of the evening had not attempted to
deny that ecclesiastical purposes might be discovered for the
application of the surplus—that churches were in ruin, that
glebe houses required building, that there were parishes with-
out cure of souls attached, and he might have added, that
there were thirty-five thousand Protestants without any spiri-
tual instruction.—( Cheers.) Did he intcni that one single
want of the Church should he supplied before they proceeded
to deal with this alleged surplus ? On a former occasion, his
Noble Friend (Lord Morpeth) had expressed a different opi-
nion. He wished his Noble Friend would repeat. his own
words, but in lieu of those he had his printed speech, sanc-
tioned by his own authority, and he was happy in being able
to produce so indisputable an authority. [The Noble Lord
then read the speech in question, which was to the purport
' that the spiritual demands of the Church should first be pro-
vided for; but that, at present, the funds did not by any means
meet the exigencies, and were clearly inadequate.]—( Loud
cheers.) And why were they now called upon to vote away
a surplus that not long back was asserted not to exist, and the
existence of which could not now be established? Why, be-
cause in the year 1853 the debt would be cleared, and the ec-
clesiastical funds might then exhibit a surplus. We were to
legislate now that at some future time a surplus might accrue.
Now he would wish his Noble Friend plainly to state whether,
it being proved that there was no surplus—whether, in fact,
the abstract resolution of that House was nut rescinded ? The
non-existence of the surplus was indisputable, and had been
as clearly demonstrated as that -two and two made four.
For years to come, according to previously-made admissions,
any excess of funds, after supplying the ordinary wants or the
Protestant Church, were to have been applied to the erection
of glebe houses and the augmentation of small livings. He
would not go into figures, alter the accurate statement which
the Right Hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth had made
the other evening. His Right Hon. Friend opposite ( Mr.
S. Rice)—albeit, Chancellor of the Exchequer—felt the
pressure of those figures, and declined to answer Ahem.—
( Loud cheers and laughter.) The Hon. Gentleman inquired
why they did not oppose the principle of the Bill entirely—
why consent to the second reading ? The Hon: Gentleman
knew how to fight on his own ground, and so did they._
(Loud) cheers.) He would tell him why they did not oppose the
principle. Because they did not wish to throw out the Bill.
The Bill contained two principles—one not objectionable if
modified in its details, and the other so objectionable that no
modification or alteration of any kind could make it even to-
lerable.—( Loud cheering.) The lion. Gentleman ap-
peared to rejoice in the dilemma his fancy had created. lie
would '° die in his place" rather than have consented to such
a measure had he entertained the opinions of the Right lion.
Baronet. This was 'no doubt very chivalric, but in that House,
as well as in other places, it appeared that discretion
was still considered the better part of valour. The principle
of the Bill was marked with the approbation of one side of the
House, and repudiated by the other. But the Right Hon.
Gentleman wished to fight the battle upon the principle, for

the fact was that he had no relish foi: the details. It had
been shewn that after the deductions ‘vhich had been and

would be made, there would be left for the support of the pa- ~
rochial Clergy of Ireland the sum of 288,1601. Now the
Right Hon. Gentleman felt that this was not a state of things
to justify appropriation. But he did not like to grapple with
figures. Like Falstaff, lie could give reasons, but " reasons
upon compulsion, nal I" ' No, no. Reasons might be
" plenty as blackberries," but not upon compulsion.—( Loud
laughter.) It had been said that in cases where there were
more than fifty Protestant parishioners an adequate provision
should be made ? What was an adequate provision ? An
adequate provision, in the opinion of the Hon. Member for
Cumberland (Sir J. Graham) and Earl Grey, for a Protest-
ant Clergyman was 300/. a year. It was the opinion of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, when last year answering the
Learned Recorder for Dublin, that 2001. a year for an incum-
bent in England or Ireland did not spew a superfluous degree
Of wealth. The Noble Lord then proceeded to state that in
the Church of England the average income of an incumbent
was 263/., while-in Ireland it was 1861. And if it were ad-
mitted that the Church Establishments of England and Ire-
' land were to be-On.a footing of equal respectability and dß-
' cieney it was clearly' a converse reason that the stipend of the
Clergymen of Ireland wr s too low. It was then said that the
stipends of the Clergy should not be reduced, but, according
to the new division of parishes, so many Ministers would not
be required. To each Protestant parish there was to be a
place of worship with one Minister, and he wished -to know
whether the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite would admit
250/. a.year not to 1),-, a surperfluous provision? •
Mr. RlCE.—No.—(Cheers from the Ministry.)
Lord STANLEY— No I lie had heard a great deal from
the other side of the House about the hardships endured by
the working Curatlys, and the pampered bloated condition of
the superior Clergy, and yet the" were told that an income of
2501. would be considered immoderate. He knew u-
some it was to the House to enter into tb^ ' • ..,,w weari-
~;'tails of particular
_
cases. He had, however. .P - '
show tlig .uli„„„t, ..:eted a few, and as they would
•
r ,„.. • .....1e state of the revenues of the Protestant
...trcli ho would, with the permission of the House, mention
one other. In the .living he was about to mention the gross
amount of the tithes was 1,300/. ; but by the reductions al=
ready made, .or proposed to be made, it would amount to 7001.