The Sun.
London, England, 1835-03-31 00:00:00

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eountry could boast.—(Hear, hear.) He added to these the
._, names of the Right Hon. Gentleman the Member for Cam-
b_ri.luge, the Hon. Baronet the Member for Dundee, and that
the late President of tl-e Board of Control, beside those
of a host of Irish Members. All these men were practically
conversant with Ireland, ar.d all concurred in the views which
he (11r. Ward) had, upon the occasion to which he referred,
endeavoured to lay before the House. He would take the
liberty of reading to the House an extract from a speech of a
~eNoble Lord who was a Member of Lord Grey's Government.
system,
alluded to Lord Stanley, who, in speaking of the tithe
Istem, in the year 1832, said—" The resistance to tithes was
the universal in Ireland. It extended to the Protestants in
in
north, as well as to the Catholics in the south. The seeds
,
been long sown and were deeply rooted. Every symptom
Which•
. could mark a determined opposition on the part of a
re Population—acting as one man against the imposition
13 a legal due—had been developed upon this occasion. NO
process could be served—no attorneys would act." Nothing
be farther from his intention than to attribute to the
Noble Lord (the Member for Lancashire) any concurrence in
his (Mr. W.'s) opinions upon this question; but he could not
evidence
id recurring to the speech which he had just quoted, as
vridence to show the extent of the evils resulting from the
present position of the Church Establishment in Ireland, and
ip..order to prove, that whatever might be the abilities of the
minister who attempted to sustain that Establishment in its
Present shape—however great might be his energies, and
towever admitted might be the confidence reposed in him
id the House of Commons (and unbounded was the con-
v_ence which that House certainly reposed in the Minister of
~,°°M he had spoken),—no man could pretend to carry on the
Government in such a manner as to meet the wishes of the
i!eoPle and their representatives without resolving to take
to consideration the system itself.—( Cheers.) It was to
the system the Legislature must look : it was at the system
e Legislature must strike.—( Continued cheers.) If they
Wished
to extricate themselves from the difficulties in which
they were then involved—if they wished to put an end to a
mate of things under which they were continually called on for
rants out of the public purse to enable them to enforce a
a
which they had not the moral courage to repeal, and all
fictis without procuring peace for Ireland, or restoring the con-
e,nee of the people in the Government, but pursuing a course
of
_ legislation the result of which must be to add contempt to
hatred of our Legislature—a consequence which must inevi-
ta4
IY follow from the continuance of a system which must be
ZabhorrentL to any country possessing a particle of freedom, and
Where those measures only which are founded on the
ev.trnal principles of justice and truth could be received
ithgratitude. If, he repeated, they wished to escape the
hesitate
evils inherent in the existing system, they could not
to affirm the principle involved in the motion of the
Noble Lord.—( Loud cheers.) He should, perhaps, be told,
ust he was begging the question ; he should be told that the
Gentlemen on the other side of the House were prepared to
rt on the principles of justice and of truth. He should, he
fatted to say, he reminded that the question of commutation of
flotru_e: hying adjusted, the Government would be enabled to en-
,„e the law with the occasional assistance of the army. He
01 not believe that any Bill for commutation would be of the
ghtest avail in Ireland, unless they changed the appropriation
cs the accompaniment of the act.—( Cheers.) They might ex-
mpt the clergy from actual collision with the people ; but they
ly transferred the odious responsibility of the collection from
Lue clergy to the landlords.—( Hear, hear, hear.) No one
ituld expect that the landlord should make a sacrifice of the
ruount of tithes due from the land. He must ultimately come
°n the tenant for the payment of the tithes • and his claim
Would be resisted on the same grounds as those now urged,
iltirelY, that the money called for would lee appropriated to
(II Maintenance of a Protestant Church Establishment.—
"'ear, and cheers.) They would be obliged to give him the
seek support as that which the clergy were now compelled to
k from the army, and they might be prepared to see more
4411. eormac scenes—the landlords instead of the clergy being
the
immediate cause of their enactment.—( Hear.) He did
et wish to be considered as referring to Rathcormac with any
ih Writty view or object. He did not wish to cast the slightest
iPutation on those who were unfortunately implicated in that
7usaction,
0, and particularly as their conduct was likely to be-
Ztle the subject of judicial inquiry ; but he must be allowed,
1! man and a Christian, to enter his protest against a system
~, ueh could, by the remotest possibility, in the 19th century,
Lproduce such results, and couple those results with the name
trill religion established for the purpose of inculcating the doc-
Hne,3 of mercy and of peace.—( Loud and continued cheers.)
hHe had, too, referred to the massacre at Rathcormac, in a
tlettse the Members of which expressed their opinions of
Wheneverc of Foreign Powers in no very measured terms
our received notions of justice and right. He remembered on
p e, Memorable occasion, that a recital of the sufferings of the
Which,
created a burst of indignation in that House, to allay
quell, it required the most energetic efforts of several Hon.
en:then, to whom he need not more particularly refer. He
°llid ask them to reverse the case, and to imagine themselves
,i, t°lg in Russia, Prussia, or France—in which countries the
ta-
ost enlightened equality prevailed with respect to religious
: 103 inion, and where no unjust distinctions were drawn on ac-
llnt of any difference in the tenets of the different classes of
°Habitants—and to suppose the Hon. Member for Dublin de-
scantinge upon the grievances to which the Catholics had
been subjected for the last three hundred years, in order to
tor?: up and maintain a church opposed to their feelings and
ra-,;,114)11a. He might, in his history of the wrongs which Ire-
hadj„" endured, tell such an assembly as that which he had
,„cti mentioned, of the existence and nature of the penal laws ;
his this was a topic which required no eloquence to
rata it upon the minds of his auditory ; nothing could
(61, to the force of facts in reference to those laws.-
-eers. He • rhttell them, also, that a church
Was mig simply
pIA maintained by the support of seven millions of peo-
e' from the doctrines of which they disstrited, and which
alrectly or indirectly was the cause of all the sufferings
Ltd misery which the people of Ireland endured.—( Cheers. )
4tl them be told that, at this day, the laws with respect to
1,4 es were so rigorously enforced, that upon one occasion nine
or man beings were sacrificed by what was termed law, in
titker to enable a Protestant clergyman to collect 4/. 10s. of
Ces•--( Cheers.) He might just touch upon the story of
widow_her joy when, upon looking at the first of the
bodies
the slain, she discovered that it was not that of her
son
f '• and the heart-rending account which she gave of her
when, upon turning over the second body, she found
that her suspicions were well founded.—( Hear, hear.) Let
the injustice of other countries, then, be no longer talked of,
thent such damning proofs of the most palpable injustice were
tooe found amongst themselves.--( Hear, hear, and cheers. )
Would this injustice be diminished, by transferring from the
ifern to the landlord the odium of collecting tithes ? No ;
claim would be resisted with as much firmness and
Perseverance, as was that of the clergyman at present;
Cnd they must support his claim by armed force.—(Loud
fr:ers.) Whilst upon this point, he would read an extract
th"tu Mr. Burke, on the folly of attempting to reconcile
e People to grievances, by having recourse to military
power:—" Where grievances exist, the complaint, or its
causes, ought to be removed ; and wise and lenient acts should
not cede measures of vigour. These ought to be the ultinia,
• the prima, not the tota, ratio of a wise Government. God
I
torb•d
that, on a worthy occasion, authority should want the
Peaos of force, or the disposition to use it ! But where a
Pre
and enlarged policy does not precede it, and attend it
• Where the hearts of the better sort of people do not go
Withi the hands of the soldiery—you may call your Constitu-
den what you will ; in fact, it will consist of three parts (or-
-I,e,r,s. if you please)—cavalry, infantry, and artillery—and of
tiel'uolg else, or better l"—( Cheers. ) But he should be told
have
if commutation were to be carried into effect, they would
—"Ye the better portion of the community with the Legislature,
je .
Lhat the Government might be enabled to compel the
and Wishes
with the aid of the soldiery, backed by the feelings
upon
Wishhieesh asowf the greater portion of the community. Now,
dP°ll what authority did that assertion rest? He found a very
iff• erent opinion expressed by the Marquis of Anglesea in a
generally attributed to him, and which he had
no hesitation in referring to, because he believed it had ap-
rtare in the public prints, and was allowed to be authentic.
wad s in these words :
The King's Government will be left in Ireland without any other
etatt, than the King's troops.
tt:'The establishment, which at all times far exceeded the wants of
rrotestant congregations, has hitherto been upheld by the State,
mein!
Y on the ground, that it served the temporal use of consolidating
reconnection between the two countries. But this s.rvice it no longer
ot'f°rrns. Instead of strengthening the connection, it weakens it.
An
1„1„--r Government henceforth pledged to maintain that establishment,
tuns be brought into constant and permanent collision with public opi-
it 'and with the prejudices and passions of the Irish people Again,
strong .
ruression has been forced up
' on me, that no measure of ad-
juTh"`rn p
ent, however satisfactory in other respects, will perfectly meet the
4"gencY, which does not include such a gradual reiuction of super-
...Kitts members as shall, finally, bring down the numbers of its dignita-
and el
officiating ministers to a scale commensurate with the religious
iwants of the Protestant community."—(Cheers.)
For seven hundred years bad the people of Ireland suffered
Under this system ; and not merely laboured under specific
trievances but had been exposed to all the evils, the heart-
nriings, turmoils, and dissentions, which must be the result
-art exercise of undue power on the one hand, and upon the
t other of hopeless degradation.—(Cheers.) Cheers. ) He did not wish
4.0_ arouse any unfriendly feelings between the people of the
he countries, but he would not conceal from the House that
towards
was ashamed of the injustice with which England had acted
:Wards Ireland ; and he would not hesitate to assert that there
core many crimes perpetrated by the Governments of this
untry which those who succeeded to them would have to
Q"Diate•—(Hear, hear.) He alluded to the many faults and
ct•iities recorded by history as marking the course of policy
Which this country had pursued towards Ireland, not for the
lint in
of reviving old animosities, not to open old wounds,
in order to show the utter impossibility of the Catho-
-4s of Ireland being ever reconciled to the Government
h Great Britain, whilst it was inseparably connected in
t tell' minds with wide-spread suffering and humiliation.—
°fud cries of " Hear, hear.") The very introduction
the Church Establishment into Ireland was founded
that a legal fiction : it was based upon the supposition
at the same relations existed between the Church and the
People between the pastors and their flocks—as those which
prevailed in reference to the Church of this country ; and
without which an established Church must be received, not
, a blessing, but a curse.—( Cheers.) " To suppose," as
ord Bacon says.—( Laughter from the Ministerial Benches.)
;iv here he was corroborated by what were upon most ques-
tions considered high authorities, in the opinions which he
ventured to pronounce, he thought he had, upon such an oc-
casion as the present, as good a right to refer to the senti-
ments of those from whom he had quoted as the Right Hon.
Baronet had, when he thought it necessary to support his
arguments on the Dissenter's Marriage Bill, by an appeal
to several authorities which he considered favourable to his
view of the question.—( Hear, hear.) He would then, with
ue, Permission of the House, refer to the opinions of Bacon :
' To suppose that men should live of the flock they do not

serve, is a thing that can hardly receive just defence." If
they went back to the earliest period of the history of the
Church in Ireland, they would find that the people of that
country kept aloof from its ministers, and refused their adhe-
sion to its doctrines. How different were the circumstances
which attended the period of the Reformation in the two
countries 1—( Loud cries of " Hear, hear, hear.") The people of
England were imbued with the doctrines of the Reformation
before the transfer of Church property took place.--( Hear)—
In Ireland there was no such preparation to induce a willing
concurrence in the tenets and establishment of the Church of
England.--( Hear, hear.) In England the performance of
the worship of the Church was conducted in a tongue which
its members understood : in Ireland the adoption of a foreign
language was forced upon the people, in place of that in which
their worship was celebrated, which, although it was a foreign
one, was nevertheless closely associated with their history and
their religion.--( Hear, and cheers.) In England, as would
be found by the authority of Archbishop Usher, the tithes
were divided for four purposes, amongst which, he need
scarcely remind the House, were the building expenses of the
churches and the support of the poor. In Ireland the people
were obliged to pay for the erection of the churches, and the
poor were discarded from the precincts of the church.—
( Hear, hear.) How, then, could a Church which was not
submitted to, or joined through the force of reason and argu-
ment, be considered by the people as anything but a badge of
conquest, forced on them by a superior power, which it was but
natural they should determine to throw off at the first favourable
opportunity?—( Cheers.) It was unnecessary for him to dwell
upon the utter inability of the Government, at the present
day, to collect tithes. The Right Hon. Baronet had the other
night admitted the incompetency of the Government to attain
that object. He should say no more, therefore, in reference
to that question. In arguing upon this subject last year he
had adduced some facts, with respect to which he hoped he
might be permitted to say, that all the information which
he had since received tended to confirm him in the opinion
which he had then expressed.—[The Hon. Gentleman here
referred to some papers which he was unable to find.) He
regretted that he could not read from the papers which he
had collected, but was obliged to depend upon his memory
for the facts which he was anxious to bring under their no-
tice. He had received from the Hon. Member for Kildare
returns from the whole of the diocese of Ossory, by which

it appeared that there was, on an average, but -OneProtes-
tant to every nineteen Roman Catholics in that diocese.—
( Hear, hear.) He had been further informed that, in some
parts of that diocese, the proportion varied from one in 45
to one in 471 ; and that the whole number of the Protes-
tant p:pulation was 10,433, and of the Roman Catholics
198,781.—(L0ud cheers.) Was he not justified, then, in
asking if there was anything resembling such a system in
any other part of the world ?—( Hear.) Take the Protestant
States, take Catholic ones, take America or France, take
Scotland, or even the North of Ireland itself, and it would be
found in every instance, that the remuneration which the
clergy received was also proportioned to the religious services
which they performed for the people.—( Cheers.) In Ireland
alone this relation was departed from ; and never until they
established that relation upon its proper footing, until they re-
verted in fact to the principles of common sense, could they
succeed in governing that country with credit or satisfaction.
—( Cheers.) The Right Hon. Baronet opposite had effected
one breach in the Constitution of 1688—a breach in that
system under which Ireland had so long groaned and for his
conduct upon that occasion, the Right Hon Baronet had his
sincere gratitude, aud, he was satisfied, the lasting thanks of
his country ; but he would ask whether the reasons by which
the Right Hon. Baronet had justified his change of opinion
upon the question of Catholic Emancipation were not strictly
applicable to the subject of the present discussion.—( Hear,
hear, and cheers.) The Noble Lord (Lord John Russell)
had before appealed to the authority of the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet upon the question which he had just named ; but he
hoped he might be permitted to call the attention of the House
to another extract from one of the Right Hon. Baronet's
speeches. It was as follows :
" The opinions which he had heretofore expressed, he still enter-
tained; but he must say that, looking to the position of the Government
of the country—looking to the position of the Legislature—hioking to
the disunion which had prevailed on this subject in his Majesty's
Councils—looking to the disunion which had marked the proceedings
of the two branches of the Legislature—and looking to the effect which
all these causes had produced upon Ireland—he must say that there
appeared to him to he sufficient reasons to accept of almost any alter-
native, rather than endure their continuance."
" That things could not, and ought not, to remain as they were ;"
" that no Government could be formed on the principle of permanent
resistance;" " that there was not the least chance that such a Govern-
ment could carry through Parliament those measures, which a rigid
adherence to the principle would render necessary ;" and that, if per-
manent resistance to concession were impossible, there only remained
one alternative, namely, a consideration of this important question, with
a view to effect such a settlement of it as should be satisfactory to all
parties."—(Loud cheering.)
How forcible, how strikingly applicable was that language
to the present position of affairs.—( Hear, and cheers.) There
were one or two other points to which he would then refer.
The main argument against his proposition last year was that
which was based upon the articles of Union between the two
countries. The articles which were first drawn up, were in
the following words :
" And that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the
said United Church, shall be preserved as now by law established for
the Church of England ; saving to the Church of Ireland all the rights,
privileges, and jurisdictions th,reunto belonging."
" The prosperity of the Church of Ireland never can be permanent,
unless it be a part of the Union to leave, as a guard, a power to the
United Parliament to make some provision in this respect beyond any
act of their own that can now be agreed upon."

" To leave Parliament an opportunity of considering what may be fit to
be done for his Majesty's Catholic subjects, without seeking at present
any rule to govern the Protestant Establishment, or making any provi.
sion upon that subject."—Speech, 2d April, 1800.
He had, however, been told in the discussion which had
taken place in the last year, that the guarantee of protection
held out by the articles of Union, regarded not merely the
discipline of the Church, but its temporalities also; and by
the meaning and intention of that Act, the advocates of the
Established Church professed themselves willing to stand or
fall. Now, he had since looked more closely into the sub-
ject, and he found that the ground which he had assumed on
the former occasion was perfectly fair and tenable. He would
read to them the articles of the Union. The treaty was ulti-
mately drawn with the omission of the saving clause in the
article which referred to the protection of the " doctrines,
worship, discipline, and Government" of the Irish Church ;
but when it was known that in the address of the two blouses
to the King, the following words were found, showing the
changes which had been effected with regard to the original
proposition :—" With the few alterations and additions which
we have found it necessary to suggest, we consider these re-
solutions as fit to form articles of Union between Great Bri-
tain and Ireland ; and if those alterations and additions shall
be approved by the two Houses of the Parliament of Ireland,
we are ready to confirm and ratify these articles, in order
that the same may be established for ever, by the mutual
consent of both Parliaments"—he was of opinion that he

had furnished conclusive proofs, with respect to inter-
ferences with the Church, of the animus of the parties by
whom the Union was proposed.—( Cries of " Hear, hear.")
The next point to which he thought necessary to refer, was
the assertion that the people of England had little or no in-
terest in the settlement of this question. He believed that
the conviction was not as general as it ought to be that, in
doing justice to Ireland, the people of England were but
doing justice to themselves.—( Hear.) An Hon. Gentleman,
a friend of his, had asked on the hustings, in the county of
Cambridge, " What had we to do with Ireland ?" Now the
State of the people of Ireland had a great deal more to do with
his constituency than perhaps he or they imagined—setting
aside every argument which was based upon the principle of
justice, and placing in abeyance any appeal which might with
fairness be made to the people of the county of Cambridge,
by asking them how they would like to be compelled to pay
the ministers of a religion from which they dissented? And
if such a system were attempted to be carried into practice
amongst them, he was very confident that none would exhibit
a more formidable passive resistance to the system than would
be displayed on the part of the constituency to whom he had
alluded. He would just put it to them whether they had
ever reflected on the expensive luxury which this Pro-
testant Established Church in Ireland was to them?—
(Loud cheering.) Did they not know—did it never
strike them that if the wealth of the Established Church
were reduced, there would be reduced also pari passu the
expenses of a standing army.—( Loud cheers, and cries of
" No, no," from the Ministerial Benches.) Honourable Mem-
bers cried " No, no l" but he would ask on what intelligible
principle but that which had been mentioned, was an Estab-
lished Church continued in Ireland? When he looked at the
force which was necessary to be kept up in the Colonies, he
could not imagine for what object but that to which he had
alluded, so large a standing army was continued in Ireland—
a country separated from us only by a few leagues of water,
and capable, he was convinced, of being united to us by every
tic of national community and feeling..---( Loud cheers.) The
Following was the

DISTRIBUTION OF FORCES, 1835. MEN.
Army in Ireland 21,078
Abroad, exclusive of India, but including Colonial Corps 34,614
Army in Ireland last year 23,071
GENERAL AND MEDICAL STAFF.
Ireland ... 13,485
Nova Scotia, i. e. Nova Scotia and Canada, with all the
difficult and delicate questions pending there
The West Indies and the Bermudas, including all the addi-
tional precautions rendered necessary by negro emanci-
pation
Gibraltar, Malta, and the lonian Islands—the keys of the
Mediterranean

MEN,

Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mauritius, Ceylon, and
Au5tra1ia........................................................... 10,210
England, Scotland, and Wales ... 21,415
Ireland (alone) ............................................. ....... 21,078
..
It appeared, therefore, that Ireland required two-thirds as
much military force as was necessary in England, Scotland,
Wales, and all our colonies. Such was the consequence
of the unnatural alliance between the army and the
Church.—( Loud cries of " No, no," and " Hear, hear.")
He might be wrong; but he sincerely believed that if
they did justice to Ireland, if they removed all the into-
lerable grievances under which the great majority of the
people of that country laboured, they would relieve Ire-
land of those discontents which at present vitiated the whole
current of the feelings of the Irish people, and might then
with perfect safety reduce the military force to an extent which
at present it would be dangerous or imoossible to contem-
plate. With respect to the three modes in which it was pre-
posed to apply the surplus of the ecclesiastical revenues in
that country—namely, the education of the people, the main-
tenance of charitable institutions, and a provision for the Ca-
tholic clergy—the best course which they could now take was
to establish the principle of appropriation, and when the exist-
ing establishment was properly reduced, then, temperately
and from time to time, determine in what manner the surplus
revenue should be applied.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Such an