The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-10 00:00:00

NATIONAL REFORM UNION.

A public meeting in connexion with the National
Reform Union was held last night in St. James's
Hall—Mr. E. Aliall in the chair. The meeting,
which was free, was well attended, the object being
to hear an address from Mr. T. Mason Jones on the
Irish Church.

The CHAIRMAN, on rising, was received with
cheers. In opening the proceedings, he stated that
be had consented to preside not because he had
anything important or new to say on the sub-
ject, but to show the interest he took in the
Irish Church question, and to evince his con-
viction that it was necessary that the public
should be educated on the subject. Broadly,
the people of England were fully convinced of
the injustice which was done to Ireland —(loud
cheers)—by the establishment of the church of
the minority, thereby inflicting an insult on the
majority of the people, and fastening on them a
badge of conquest. (Hear, hear.) But whilst
Englishmen broadly and generally viewed this mat-
ter as a wrong that ought to be remedied, large
numbers were unacquainted with the history of that
church, and if they knew the political wickedness and
social wrong which bad been done in order to bol-
ster up Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, they
would be convinced that the only remedy was to do
away with it altogether. (Cheers.) Compromise
in this matter would inflict further wrong on Ire-
land. If we bad done wrong in inflicting an alien
church on her, it was better to extinguish it, instead
of widening the evil, taking into consideration, of
course, all interests concerned. He earnestly
trusted the new constituencies would make this sub-
ject one on which their will should be unmistake-
ably manifested. and if it did not lead to that
result it would lead to nothing. He had the fullest
confidence in the interest Mr. Jones took in this
question. (Hear, hear.) That gentleman pos-
sessed the fullest information upon the subject, and
had means of judging of the feelings of the people
not only of Ireland, but of Irishmen in America.
He trusted that before they left the hall they-
would b 3 of unanimous opinion that. as soon as pos-
sible the word would go forth from the English
people that the Irish Church Establishment ought
to be swept away altogether. (Cheers.)

Mr. MAsoN JONES reminded the meeting that the
truth uttered by Slr B. Peel thirty years ago, that
Ireland was England's greatest difficulty, was
equally true now. When the Irish difficulty was
confined to America and Canada the people of
England were comparatively indifferent ; but now
that outrage and assassination were stalking in
our streets that indifference vanish and had
given place to a feeling of fear and alarm which was
not very creditable to the courage of the nation.
He believed that for ulterior political purposes a
certain portion of the•newspaper press fostered that
feeling, and endeavoured to drive weak Liberals into
the ranks of Toryism for the future. (Hear, hear.)
But while the English people were properly deter-
mined to repress and punish outrages of so terrible
a character that those who committed them scrupled
not to offer up the lives of innocent persons as a
holocaust to their revenge, let them not forget the
wrongs under which Ireland laboured, the prin-
cipal of which were the land question, and
the Irish Church. It was on the latter point
he was to speak, and it was impossible to use
language too strong in referring to that Church.
It was, in fact, the grossest, the most monstrous,
and unjustifiable anomaly of modern times, the
like of which was to be found in no country ou the
face of the civilised globe. The Established Church
was imposed upon Ireland quite as much as a poli-
tical as a religious institution, with the twofold pur-
pose of forming a religious garrison and Anglicising
and converting the natives to the reformed faith,
and they had endeavoured to uphold it ever since by
wholesal confiscation and the bayonet. To the evils
of conquest they added all the evils of persecution,
and the history of Ireland from the early part of
Queen Elizabeth's reign to the revolution of 1688 I
was a ghastly record of unjust laws, conspiracies, in-
surrections, sieges, and massacres, which destroyed
c)mmerce, brought agriculture to a standstill, and
wasted, despoiled, and destroyed the country.
The speaker then went on to quote statistics in
reference to the revenues of the Irish Church,
and the opinions of numerous statesmen,
and then proceeded to discuss the remedies pro-
posed, giving it as his opinion that nothing would
be effective as a cure for the present state of things
but the total disendowment of every religious de-
nomination in Ireland. With respect to the dis-
tribution of the revenues, that question was pre-
mature, but he was of opinion that the funds
might be profitably expended in bringing into cul-
tivation the million of acres of waste lands in Ire-
land
and creating a peasant proprietary ; besides i
which there would be a poetical justice in making
the revenues of a church which, 150 years ago,
destroyed the existing tenure of land in Ireland,
the means of creating a new and loyal peasant
proprietary. (Cheers.) To the new Parliament
Ireland would appeal as a simple suitor
for justice, and he had the utmost faith
in the great English heart, with its love
of liberty, its love of justice, its love offairplay,and 1
when the Irish people demanded in a constitutional
lnileavnende manner
iti
an
ta tt hb ee r
dwarroknErs
ss hoof u
Il dr
ebl
ae
nrde,ds r ens si
ge ~
iii t he
wouldbe-
pass away, and that her appeal to the justice of
England's people would not be made in vain. (Mr.
Jones sat down amidst the general cheers of the
meeting.)
Mr. PROBYN next addressed the meeting, express-
ing
his views as an Englishman and a Protestant
on the injustice of maintaining the present Church
Establishment in Ireland, and his opinion that
the. Scotch and English nations were one
bee ause their churches were two ; and he put
it to the meeting whether, if Ireland had been
the stronger power and England the weaker, and
if Ireland had attempted by penal measures to
make Roman Catholicism the predominant religion
of Daglaud, and were to support out of English
revalues an Irish Roman Catholic church, the
people of England would not resist to the death ?
( Cheers.)
Sir 11. HOARE proposed a cordial vote of thanks
Ito the chairman for presiding. That gentleman
was a talented supporter of the voluntary system,
and he had not only carried out that principle,
but had come to preside over the meeting at

E SPA
" personal inconvenience. (Igar; Etat,
•.) The present difficulties.- involved the
whole question of the tenure of' land and tke:,,4-:
repeal of the Union to which last 4•:could -
agree. So far as the Irish Church'question
concerned, they had a perfect right toiap to tl4r S
rulers restore to Ireland its Church. (Reg hear.)
Mr. BRINDLEY seconded the motion, which was
carried enthusiastically.
The CITAIMIAN, in returning thanks, said that
the putting of a case was very often the making of
it, and he perfectly sympathised and concurred with
the Icturer in the manner in which the cas-e against
the Irish Cutreli had been put by Mr. Mason Jones
and o'sher speaker 3.

cheer was then given fur the lecturer, and tit)
pro,:cedings tertntiatel.

TL7 R. 1•: E .

(Fro :n the Lcrant 11-2rald of Jan. 1.)

The Porte has decided ou sending a couple of
staff officers to Abyssinia; the selection for the
mis,ion has not, however, yet been male.
llamazan c-mninenced on Thursday evening, and
business is for the time virtually suspended at the
Porte.

Mithad Pasha, governor-general of the Danube
vilaet, is expected in the capital next week, to make
a detailed report on the state of his province, and
of his excellency's impressions as to the state of
things across its immediate borders. Ahmed
Kaisserly Pasha, governor of, the Archipelago, has
already arrived on business connected with the
islands under his own jurisdiction.
The agent of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro,
whose expected arrival we recently mentioned, has
since reached Constantinople. The Vienna Wan-
derer says the object of the mission " is peremptorily
to demand from the Ottoman Government the
Cession of the port of Autivari or that of Spizza,
and, in case of refusal, to-intithate to Turkey that
those two places will be taken by armed force, with
the aid of Servia."
Considerahle dissatisfaction is said to be felt in
Turkish quarters with the appointment of a French
colonel as tutor to Prince Izzedin. The matter was,
it seems, arranged during the Sultan's visit to Paris,
and the new "governor"—whose salary is to be on
the most imperial scale—is daily expected out to
enter on his duties. M. Boudin, who is to be the
virtual head of M. Bouree's new college, has also
been telegraphed for, and will probably, arrive be-
fore Bairam.

We learn with satisfaction that Nlehemet Ruschdi
Pasha has not resigned the Ministry of War. Porte
rumour stated that he had done so because of the
firman authorising the establishment of the new
French " model college" having issued, in spite of
his urgent remonstrances. The report probably
originated in the known opposition of his higness to
the scheme, which he regards, in common with nine-
tenths of the public, as utterly impolitic and doc-
trinaire.

BANK OF FRANCE

PARIS, Jan. 9.

The following is the return of the Bank of France
for the week ending to-day, together with the cor-
responding figures of the previous account :

DEBTOR.
Jan. 9.

Jan. 2.

182,500,000 -

Capital of the Bank 182,500,000
Profits in addition to
capital (Art. 8, Law,
June 9, 1857) 7,044,776 02
Reserve of the Bank
and its branches 22,105,750 14 22,105,750 14
Reserve of landed pro-
perty 4,000,000 4,000,000
Notes in circulation
Banknotes to order and
receipts payable at
sight
Treasury account cur-
rent creditor 76,399,407 07 93,153,263 21
Current accounts, Paris 319,596,003 11 360,987,4;A 55
Do. branch banks 38,580,709 47,000,643
Dividends payable 5,827,313 73 9,31.',968 75
Discounts and sundry

7,014,776 02

31,114,275 78
.33,613,881 85

interests
Rediscounted the last

1,115,241 84 786,196 51

930,37 G 76 930,376 76

six months
Surplus of receipts not
distributed
Sundries

7,140,856 80

Total
CREDITOR.

Jan. 9. Jan. 2.
Cash in hand and in fr. c. fr. e.
Branch banks
Commercial bills over-

duo
Commercial bills dis-

461,572 57 4,686,373 61

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