The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-27 00:00:00

the tenant from the payment of tithes ; but we at the same
time propose to give a power to the Privy Council to reetiYtr
the amount of arrears for the year 1834, f.tlll3eCl to a reduc-
tion of 25 per cent. from those littialoras who have a perma-
nent estate in the lanti---that is an estate of inheritance, and
upon whom the liability has already by law devolved. There-
fore, in the case of an occupying tenant, we do connive to a
certain extent at the non-fulfilment of certain obligations : yet,
in the instance of those who have voluntary undertaken to pay
the clergymen, we certainly shall require the fulfilment of their
obligations. We therefore, in this case, certainly give a pre-
ference to the persons who did not choose to take upon them-
selves that liability, over those who have obeyed, or who have
undertaken to obey the, law. In addition to these points, we
propose to apply the residue of the million to those landlords
who have undertaken to pay the clergymen. We also pro-
pose to ask leave of a Committee of this House to introduce
subsequently into this Bill a clause for remitting the instal-
ments due for all sums advanced under the Million Act.—

( Hear, hear.) I do not pretend absolutely to defend this
measure. I admit that that million was voted under a pro-
mise of repayment; and I believe that the repayment was sin-
cerely in the contemplation of those who proposed that vote.
But after the rejection of the Tithe Bill of last year—( Hear,
hear, hear)—and after the admission which, even before that
rejection, was made in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne,
then Prime Minister, as to the improbability there was of ever
being able to recover the million and after the distinct an-
nouncemet of the Right Honourable and Gallant Officer
in his place as Secretary for Ireland, that he meant to propose
a remission of that debt, I must think that every one must be
convinced that this million was gone past recovery.—( Hear.)
It is impossible to recover it from those whom I still con-
sider to be the suffering Clergy of Ireland—(Hear, hear,
hear)—as it must inevitably involve them in those means of
military interference which would lead to.a repetition of those
sanguinary collisions that have already signalized the attempts
made to recover tithe arrears ; and which, after all, would most
probably terminate as those attempts have hitherto done, in the
collection of' a sum of 12,0001. at a cost of 28,0001.—(Great
cheering.) I know that many of those who sit on the same
side of the House with myself have expressed their opinion on
this subject, and have declared their determination not to con-
sent to so great a free gift, on the part of this empire at large,
to relieve the embarrassments of the Irish Clergy, or to prop
up the condition of the Irish Church, without such an equiva-
lent as that of the future disposal of the tithes—as would be
consistent with justice, more congenial to the feelings of the
people, and more conducive to the real object we all have in
view, that of a permanent settlement of this question upon the
basis of civil and religious liberty. Well, such a liberal pro-
vision we propose to engraft upon our Bill, and it is upon the
strength of this that we now come forward to appeal to the
generosity of the representatives of the empire at large to con-
firm this Parliamentary grant, in order that we may be able not
only to meet the pressing exigencies of the case, but to ad.
dress ourselves with more facility and freedom to the terms of
the arrangement before us. Having thus disposed of—
Lord STANLEY begged pardon for interrupting the No-
ble Lord ; but he wished to ask what amount of arrears the
Noble Lord expected the Privy Council to be able to collect ?
—( Order, order.)
Lord M 0 RPETH—I will give the Noble Lord the informa-
tion he requires, as far as I can. The amount of composition
which devolves upon the landlords amounts to about 75,0001.,
but we propose only to recover from those landlords who are
in possession of an estate of inheritance, so that the amount
likely to be recovered will be between 60,0001. and 70,0001.
Having then, thus disposed of what appertains to the past (as
to the payment of arrears), I now advert to the provisions
proposed to be established for the future. In common with
the proposition contained in the Bill of last year, and in that
announced by the Right Hon and Gallant Officer this year,
we propose to convert the existing tithe composition into an
annual rent charge, payable by the owner of the first estate of
inheritance, or such other equivalent estate, which rent charge
shall be equal to seven-tenths of the amount of the present
composition, that is, to 701. out of every 1001. composition.
The proposal of the Right Hon. and Gallant Officer opposite
was, that the rent-charge should be equal to three-fourths of
the composition—that is, to 751. out of the 1001. I need not
apologise to the landlords of Ireland for the alteration I now
propose to make. In the Bill of last year the amount of the
rent charge was proposed to be three-fifths, or 601. in every
1001. ; but then it devolved a charge of 17 per cent. upon
the consolidated fund and the perpetuity purchase fund, and
no remission was proposed to be made of the million grant.
But we do not propose to put the income of the existing
Clergyman, who is the incumbent, upon quite 'the same
amount at which we hereafter fix the rent charge. The rent
charge will make 701., per cent. but we shall charge the cost of
collection of all tithes due to tithe owners, staking a further
reduction of 6d. in the pound. Thus the actual net income
derivable from every 100/. composition will be 681. ss.
but we have determined to make a difference not only be-
tween the existing and the future incumbent Clergyman,
but between the Clergyman incumbent and the lay impro-
priator, inasmuch as the one has no duty to perform, and the
other has a duty to discharge exceeding all others in import-
ance ; and who has from circumstances, during the last few
years, been reduced to a state of great privation ; not, I be-
lieve, in most instances from any fault of his own, or from
any demerits of the body to which he belongs.-_( Cheers.)
But his reverses have been caused by that just retribution
which is always involved in a vicious system, and which sooner
or later is sure to visit even its most unoffending
(Cheers. ) The income, then, that will accrue to the exist-
ing clerical incumbent will amount to 73/. 55., out of every
100/. composition. This additional charge will certainly not
be perpetual, as in the Bill of last year ; and we propose to
make a charge of five per cent. only, instead of seventeen
and a half per cent., as proposed in a former Bill, upon the
perpetuity purchase fund ; which, considering the men to
whom relief is to be applied, and the object intended to be
obtained by it—namely, a final settlement of this great ques-
tion—cannot be regarded as an unappropriate or an uneccle-
siastical distinction. And lam pleased to think that this view
of the subject received countenance from the statement made

by the Right Hon. and Gallant Gentleman opposite, for, as
I understood the speech with which he opened his plan to
the House, he meant that in case of any loss accruing to the
present clerical incumbent during the investment of the re-
demption money, for which the Bill provided, though the
provision makes no part of our measures to indemnify the
existing clerical incumbent, to the amount of 751. a year,
and this indemnification be proposed to charge upon the per-
petuity purchase fund. The machinery of the present Bill is
so similar to that of the Bill of last year, that I shall not feel
myself called upon to enter into any details respecting it. It
makes the rent charges payable to the tithe, and invests the
care of them in his Majesty's Commissioners of Land Re-
venue. I believe the Right Hon. and Gallant Gentleman
proposed that the clergy should recover from the head land-
lord, and that if they did not receive their due at the proper
period, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should levy it for
them, having recourse to the tithe process. Now, I cannot
but think that this arrangement tended to involve ecclesias-
tical persons and bodies in a constant recurrence of dispute
and altercation, as well as in the merely secular province of
the matter, to a far greater extent than I think desirable.—
( Cheers.) This Bill will provide, in addition to the provi-
sions I have already enumerated, a power of revision and re-
valuation, under certain circumstances, of the existing tithe
composition. I own I should have very much desired to have
put an end to the whole subject at once, but the represen-
tations which were made were so many and so urgent—com-
ing, too, in a great degree, from those who yielded to none
in good will and friendliness to the Church, backed, too, in
many cases, by such strong circumstances in corroboration—
that we have felt it would be difficult, if not impossible, to
effect any settlement of the tithe that would carry with it the
probable acceptance of the Irish people, without including
some such measure of revision and revaluation.—( Cheers. )
Our care, therefore, has been, on the one hand, to adopt
such just and proper precautions as would ensure the absence
of real and sound matters of complaint, such as promissory
notes given by insolvent parties, adjudications made by tribu-
nals before whom the parties did not appear, and other in-
stances of the like nature, while at the same time we secured
that power of revision from being groundlessly, frivolously, or
vexatiously exercised.—(Loud cheers.) After the amount of
the rent-charges has been once fixed, it will be liable to no
further variation, except as the compositions arc now varied,
according to the price of corn, at certain stated periods. It is
likewise proposed to extend the provisions of Lord Tenterden's
Act for the limitation of actions in Ireland, in the same manner
as was proposed by the Bill of last year. These, Sir, are the
principal particulars of the measure, so far as regards the im-
mediate settlement of the property in tithe, and the interests
of the existing incumbents. In recommending them to the
favour of the House, I do not do so, assuredly, because they
obviate all objections, or steer clear of all difficulty. The na-
ture of the question itself, and the actual circumstances of the
time, render such a conclusion impossible, and make anything
we can select but a choice between the conflicting embarrass-
ments which must beset the question, to do what seems for the
utmost practical good of all parties with the least avoidable
unfairness to any—(Checrs)—and we incur this disadvantage,
too—the disadvantage of running counter to that favourite and
specific plan, which every one who gives his attention to so
large and important a subject is sure to set his own heart upon.
Some persons lay great stress upon a total revaluation, and the
imposition of a general land-tax ;to which I think the chief
objection is, the unnecessary consumption of time consequent
upon the introduction of the new machinery which such a
change would require.—( Hear, bear.) Others—and I know
these form a large party—are very much wedded to the prin-
ciple of redemption. Now, I have not to remind the House
that the propositions which were laid before it for the redemp-
tion of tithe were, after much trial and long discussion, re-
jected by the last Parliament. I did not think they would find
favour with the present; and I own I have never been able to
sec how they could be carried into effect without very sensible
loss, and without a very sensible diminution of the revenues
of the Clergy.--( Cheers.) On the whole I prefer to re-
commend this Bill For the adoption of the House, as in the
first place liberal to the Clergy, to whom it remits a mil-
lion of money which is now due from them, and secures
to them for the time to come a certain amount of income,
subject, it is true, to certain deductions, but guaranteed be-
yond the risk of failure, and without any trouble or cost of
collection.—(Cheers.) I recommend this Bill as satisfactory
to the occupying tenant, from whom it removes all tbe vexa-
tions incident to the collection, extending even in well-dis-
posed persons to the resistance of the obnoxious impost—as
conducive to the real interests of the landlord, to whom, in ad-
dition to all the indirect advantages which must result to him
from the comparative tranquillization of the country, it gives,
as far as the land of which he is the owner is concerned, a di-
rect bonus of 30 per cent.—as calculated upon the whole to
give satisfaction to, and find acceptance with, the country at
large, especially when coupled with that fairer and more equal
distribution of ecclesiastical revenues, of which we now hope
to lay the foundation, which we hope ultimately to establish,
and which I will now proceed very briefly to submit to the