The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-03 00:00:00

public opinion, which cannot be controlled by the
Tmcs of this House, and independent of them.—(hear. )
) never was more convinced of the truth of any proposition than
this, vaat ribiie opinion will not sanction your proceedings It ts ry
-
bow with apparent submission, but not with appretalion, to your
at` ,myt to throw impediments in the way of the Executive Go-
%eminent. It will not suction your vote of want of confidence, if
Poch is meaet. to ',et implied by your proceedings.—( Hear, hear,)
W'.y not declare that your object is not to throw out the present
government, but to mal‘e the Government hi which you have no
confidence undertake those measures. Are you confident in your
c:n thoughts? You say you have a majority ; and if so, are you
prepared to assume the executive Government ?—( Cheers.) That
z a question which I think should. be asked. If you feel that
no can count upon the support of the people and upon a majority
this House, why not at once take that course which will decide
the question, and assume that responsibility? I avow that I cannot
undertake to enforce tbs proposition—l differ from you, and I give
ton this fair -advice—l intend to object to the Committee—l intend
is. object to the resolution—l intend to object. to the communica-
tion of that resolution to his Majesty.—(Ministerial cheers.) If,
aster that, you persevere in this resolution, and that you intend
to object to the progress of that measure—(hear. hear)—the
pr;nciple of which, I admit, I am bound to believe is
necessary to the settlement of the tithe question—if you perse-
eere in a principle which I cannot concur in, then I shall admit (the
intention being clearly intimated) that it will be my duty to declare
that it will be impossible for me to remain in the situation which
I have at present the honour to fill.—( The Right Hon. Baronet
ass down amid loud and long continued cheering from the Minis-
terial Benches.)
Lord J. RUSSELL said that neither in the case in which sti-
pends were paid where there were no parochial schools and no ser-
vice performed, nor in the case in which the incomes of the clergy
might be augmented where they were abundantly paid already,
could any benefit result to the great mass of the population. The
Right Hon. Baronet had asked him if he meant to pull down the
churches. He thought there was something extremely odd in this
inquiry. Where a church was properly established it could not re..
quire any very great expense to keep it up ; and he should think
that. where there was a church, and Divine Service properly per,
formed in it, it would be entirely wrong to disturb or interfere
with it.—( Hear, bear.) The Noble Lord, the Member for Lan-
cashire, had said that he would not consent to anything of this
sort bring done in Ireland, yet he might consent to it in Canada,
and that it. was quite right there should be a different sort of establish-
ment in Scotland. Surely the Noble Lord forgot that the House
was as much bound to attend to the interests of the people of
Ireland as to the people of Canada or of Scotland, and that it
was not bound to abide by the letter of the law any more in one
case than in the other. wlt might be said, as it had been, that
the plan proposed would go to affect the Church of England. Cer-
tainly, if he could suppose the Church of England to be in the
situation in which the Church of Ireland now was, it would go to
affect it. But what was the ease of the Church of England ?
It had ministers in it preaching the religion which the people be-
lieved. There were tithes undoubtedly creating some discontent,
but acknowledged-to be the law by the whole country. The estab-
lishment here was agreeable to the people ; it was with the consent
of the people, and to their general benefit. The real question was
that which the Right Hon. Gentleman had stated at the commence-
ment of his speech. He stated that the property consisting of
tithes not having been in a due and regular course of collection for
nearly four years, the question was, what course the House would
pursue in order to secure the Church right to that property, and
what was the disposition they would make of it? This was the
real question, and so long as the House pursued the policy of the
Right Hon. Baronet, so long would it be before they came
to a satisfactory settlement of the question.—( Cries of " Hear,
hear, hear.") He had always been an advocate against that
sort of legislation which was adverse to the interests of the people,
repugnant to their feelings, against the principles of reform, and
would not stand the test of a scrutiny, and he should continue to be
so, because he was persuaded of the propriety of that course. So
convinced was he of it, that if by any chance or accidentahe Right
Hon. Baronet, instead of having been left in a continued minority
since the commencement of Parliament, had been in possession of
a large majority, and if he could even obtaW more than 100 of a
xaajority on the present question, he was sure the real strength of
the question was such, that it would be brought forward year after
"year—( Hear)—and that it would be impossible for the House
finally to maintain the system now in operation. On the other
hand, he was sure, if the House adopted the other system, and now
applied part of the revenuos to the education of the people, it would
then show to the people of Ireland that this was not a sum to be
collected from them in which they were to take no interest. They
would show they wished to attend to them, and that when they
ramie a law beneficially, they would make it effectually.—(Cheers.)
Under those.eircumstances he could do no otherwise than ask the
House to go into a Committee to consider this. It would be for
the House then to say whether or not the resolution should be sent
in an address to the Throne. It seemed certainly to him, that ac-
cording to the natural course of measures of this kind, such an ad-
dress would-be expedient. He could not feel it could be right to
introduce a bill upon the subject without the consent of the Mi-
nisters. A measure of this kind ought to proceed irons Govern-
ment. He was confident that if the Right Hon. Baronet chose
to undertake it, abandoning the principle he had assumed, great
advantage would be afforded to it by the impulse he would be able
to bring to its force. But while he did not bring forward the re-
solution in order to distress the Government—(Hear, hear)—he
was quite convinced that the principle was of so much importance,
that it contained so much within itself for the future peace
and good government of Ireland, that he ought 'not to delay
an instant in its proposal, even if he were told that its effect
would be to embarrass or destroy any Ministry.—(Hear, hear.)
As he had said it was a principle he was prepared to maintain
against his Noble Friend, with whom he *regretted he had to differ
on the subject, a question which he
.had advocated when it arose
from time to time in his official intercourse with his colleagues, and
surely it could not now be expected that for the purpose of keeping
in office a Ministry so weak and of so little inherent power as the
present Ministry possessed, he should avoid bringing forward the
resolution. The Learned Solicitor-General had powerfully argued
against the proposition,: but he remembered a Solicitor-General
who in that House opposed Catholic Emancipation. He after-
wards became Attorney-General, and then Master of the Rolls.
He delivered an eloquent speech against the Emancipation, io
which, amongst other things, he brought before their eyes all
the horrors of the reign of Queen Mary ; but after a little time
that same Learned Person took directly an opposite course, and
he recollected hearing him say, when he was quoting an Act
of King William to show that the Catholics were admissible,
and in answer to another Member who said that he had taken a
contrary course the previous year, " Yes, but since that time I
have been prosecuting my studies." (" Hear, hear." aid laughter.")
He had considerable hopes that the present Learned Solicitor-Ge-
neral, taking advantage of that example, would alio prosecute his
studies—(Hear, hear)—and very soon come down to the House
quoting the statute of Henry VIII., in order to sustain the posi-
tion of his Hon. Friend, the Member for Cambridge, that the ec-
clesiastical function properly included the religious and moral ed-
ucation of the people.—(Cheers.) Under these circumstances he
would go with confidence to the decision of the House. He should
indeed consider himself weak if he consented to wait till the end of
May, or beginning of June, and then introduce a Bill to Parliament
upon the subject, with respect to which, after he had taken consi-
derable F sins in framing, the Right Hon. Gentleman having
got all his supplies—(Hear, hear)—and in possession of all he
wanted, would tell him some day, on the third reading, or perhaps
when it first went up to the House of Lords, that all his time and
labour had been lost because it was the intention of his Majesty
next day to prorogue Parliament.—(Cheers, and laughter.) Be-
fore the House came to a decision on the Tithe Bill, it was abso-
lutely necessary that its opinions should be taken on this principle.
He was not disposed to pass any Tithe Bill in which the principle
of appropriation was not rccongnized ; nor was he prepared to
support any Government who by a Tithe Bill of this nature would
continue the use of military force.—(Cheers.) He was persuaded
notwithstanding all the taunts of his Noble Friend, the Member
for Lancashire, and notwithstanding what had been said by the
Right Hon Baronet, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that adapt-
ing a Tart of the revenues of the Church to education where Roman
Catholics and Protestants could be educated together, where they
might be taught many at least of the great principles of Christianity,
and where it might. lie left to them to learn and to read their re-
spective peculiar creeds from their own ministers, on certain days
and at certain hours, that that would be a plan which would contri-
bute in no small degree to promote harmony amongst these between"
whom that discord and animosity had existed which all must de-
plore.—( Cheers. ) With respect to the amendment of his Hon.
Friend, the Member for Weymouth, he did not see any reason for
using the words proposed in the first part of the amendment ; at any
rate he thought. it. would be better not to press that at present.
If it should be the pleasure of the House in Committee to adopt
thorn, be certainly should not object to it. As to the latter part of
it, if the members of the church establishment increased so as to re-
quire a resumption of any part of the surplus, there could be no ob- j
jection to that provision.