The Sun.
London, England, 1832-07-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE, PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. Stanley's speech on Thursday evening;
introductory of his plans of tithe legislation for'
Ireland, was not deficient in that sort of ability
which has usually " got men on" as show-politi-
cians in this country. It was a good ParliamenJ
tary speech. But it resembled certain country
gentleman Acts of Parliament, scores of which
are, or at least were, to be found upon the sta-
tute-book, in two unfortunate particulars. First,
the preamble was not borne out by the enact-
ments ; secondly, the enactments (with few ex-
ceptions) could never by any conceivable devices
be enforced. Tie Right Hon. Gentleman set
out with alleging a series of considerations,
*llia urged him, as he said, to press forward
he subject at this late period of the session,
rather than leave it to a reformed Parliament and
to another year. Those considerations, as re-
ported, were, " the condition of the established
clergy" (many of whom, indeed, are starving),
" the disorganization of society," and the "help-
lessness of the existing law" for the maintenance
of order. These evils appeared to the Irish Se-
cretary to constitute an emergency so imminent
and so awful, as to compel him to apologize to the
House for hurrying on his remedial measures.
In his enumeration of evils, however, he omitted
or but slightly touched on one important cir-
cumstance—namely, that the tithe system, upon
which he was about to legislate so largely, did
no longer exist. With regard to Mr. Stanley's
remedies, what are they ? He will have the
Tithe Composition Act made compulsory and
permanent. Good. He will thus extend to the
whsle of Ireland, and under certain forms and
titles, will in a manner perpetuate, a law which
has already been acted upon in more than half
of Ireland ; and with what effect ? Why, that
compositions have been regularly signed and
sealed, and yet not a shilling of tithe has, for the
last twelve months, been extracted from the pa-
rishioners so compounding, by the clergy, who
are left to starve. If there be no real virtue in
the Composition Act, operating throughout
1,200 parishes, and if, under its provisions, the
incumbents are unable to obtain their income,
by what miracle can the same imbecile machinery
be indued with vigour enough to secure the tithe
of 1,800 parishes? The Composition Act was, in
its day, a specimen of enlarged legislation. Its ori-
ginal framer, Lord Wellesley, designed it to
be compulsory ; but the journeyman spirit of
Messrs. Goulburn and Peel deprived it of
that,—its most upright and valuable charac-
teristic,—and clogged it with conditions so
partial to the interests of the clergy, that it could
not offer an effectual check to the growing mur-
murs among a Catholic people, against the
principle of paying tithe under any modification
to an alien Church. What cure, then, has the
Right Honourable Gentleman recommended
for this pressing—this emergent Mischief—the
actual non-payment of tithe under the Composi-
tion Act, and consequent destitution of the
clergy ? Why he says, " Let us extend the
same Composition Act," and thus genera-
lise the clerical starvation. With all due de-
ference to Mr. Stanley's judgment, we really
think that he need not have been in this mortal
haste to administer such a nostrum, which will
not alleviate one single particle of the misery
which he assigns as his immediate motive for
suggesting it. We have never ceased to urge,
that a tax on land, to be paid by the land-
lord, would be the best description of perma-
nent fund out of which to pay the clergy of the
three denominations in Ireland, as likewise to
provide for the poor. Great difficulties would,
no doubt, present themselves to the immediate
adjustment of such a tax to land leased out
already ; but what are such difficulties compared
with that of attempting the enforcement of tithe
from the occupiers, expressly and exclusively for
the service of a church, to the support of which
they have one and all resolved that it would be
wicked in them directly to contribute ? Accord-
ing to Mr. Stanley himself, the evil is actual
and present,—viz. the beggared state of the es-
tablished clergy, and for this evil he tenders a
mockery by way of relief—the enlargement of a
law which no legal power can execute. Mr.
Stanley himself admits that with the amount of
revenue hitherto enjoyed by the church, he does-
not design to meddle through the operation of
the measures now developed. We tell him,
then, that on such an admission his whole pro-
ject stands self-condemned, inasmuch as any
new scheme for confirming to the church the
immense and unjustifiable income which she has
heretofore appropriated, must, if effectual as an
instrument of legal torture, tend still more to
spread that " disorganization of society," of
which the Right Hon. Gentleman complains,
while, if inefficacious, it will but add contempt
for legislative authority,—to hatred of its
objects. The second Bill proposed by the Right
Hon. Gentleman demonstrates how airy and
unsubstantial is the whole fabric of his Irish po-
licy. To be sure, after fancying that a parch-
ment composition act would be more successful,
if spread over the whole surface of the country,
than if applied to about two-thirds, with respect
to which it has proved a lamentable failure, one
can hardly be surprised at a second conundrum
of the Irish Secretary, whereby he takes for
granted that he may allure the tithe-abhorring
community in Munster to his net. Mr. Stanley
proposes, and makes it the subject of a distinct
and solemn Bill, that the Bishop and beneficed
clergy of each diocese shall form a corporation,
into whose hands are henceforth to be paid the
tithes of each parish in that diocese, by whom
they are to be distributed among the parochial
clergy, on the principle, in each instance, of
quantum meruit, no doubt. But how, if the
people will not pay more tithe to the right rev.
corporations than they have done to the indi-
vidual incumbents ? Will there be any thing so
irresistibly seductive in the body corporate as to
overcome, in favour of its stewardship, the uni-
versal repugnance to the name and obligation of
tithe ? If the law be powerless on behalf
of the rector, will it be invincible for the
Bishop and his colleagues ? We wish
that Mr. Stanley would look more at things
and less at shadows. The bulk of the people
of Ireland, Protestant, Catholic, and Presbyterian,
will not pay tithe to rectors, vicars, or ecclesias-
tical corporations. It is useless to imagine it.
Nor will the people of Ireland,- whether tenants
or landlord, consent to pay money under any
denomination, whether tithe, or tax, or rate, of
the same amount as they hitherto have contri-
buted, to the exclusive service of the Established
Church. Not only must the " tithe" be anni-
hilated, but the substitute for it must be other-
wise, and more comprehensively bestowed. Both
these points appear to have escaped Mr. Stanley,
who attempts to make the abolition of tithe pro-
spective, while the nation have already abolished
it, and who affords no prospect whatever of a
reduction, by law at least, in the sum total of
those emoluments, which, no matter whence de-
rived, have in years past gone to the benefit of
the established clergy. They will have the cork