The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-24 00:00:00

1835 AND 1868.

On Monday next, when Mr. Gladstone brings forward
his motion on the Irish Church, thirty-three years to a
day will have elapsed since a serious attempt was made to
reduce the Irish Establishment. On the 30th of March,
1835, Lord John Russell, then leader of the Opposition,
moved that the House should resolve itself into committee
" to consider the temporalities of the Church of Ireland."
In committee, he proposed to move a resolution
recommending the application of the surplus Church
revenue to purposes of general education. At the
same time he announced that, if the resolution were
adopted, he should move that it be presented to the Crown
in an address, with a humble entreaty "that his Majesty
would be most graciously pleased to enable the House to
carry it into effect." To persons not familiar with the
strict rates which for centuries have governed the rela-
tions between the Sovereign and the Legislature, this
method of addressing the Crown—the same now em-
ployed in the third resolution—may seem unneces-
sarily circuitous. The explanation, however, is simple.
Where the patronage or proprietary rights of the Sove-
reign are affected by any proposed parliamentary
measure, it is necessary to obtain the hoyal sanction
before proceeding with the bill. It had been decided,
in a precisely similar case, that the House of Com-
mons could not constitutionally dispose of the eccle-
siastical patronage of the Crown without the King's
special consent, expressed by a message, either upon the
advice of the Ministers, or in answer to an address.
The motion for going into committee on the
question of the temporalities was resisted by Sir
Robert Peel, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, but was,
after a four days' debate, carried on the 2nd April by a
nr.a.;ority of 33. The main issue was, whether there should
be an " appropriation" of surplus revenue. The Tory
party were willing that the emoluments of the Church
should be subject to redistribution and rearrangement,
but were not willing that any portion should be
applied to secular purposes. A resolution was ulti
mately adopted : " That any surplus revenue o:
the present Church Establishment in Ireland not
required for the spiritual care of its members be applied
to the moral and religious education of all classes of the
people, without distinction of religious persuasion, pro
viding for the resumption of such surplus or of any such
part of it as may be required by an increase in the
number of the members of the Established Church."
Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, spoke and voted
with the Government. He contended that the
" appropriation" would not pacify Ireland, and pro
tested against what he described as a proscription
of the Established Church in particular districts because
only a few persons were attached to it. After the resolu-
tion of the committee had been reported to the House,
another critical division took place on the 7th of April,
1835, the majority being 27 against the Govern-
ment. On the following day the Duke of Wellington in
the Lords and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons announced
the dissolution of the Ministry ; and on the 18th of April
Lord Melbourne notified the formation of a new Cabinet,
in which he occupied the place of First Lord of the
Treasury.

TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION FOR SCOTLAND.—There
seems every probability that this question will now be
taken up with great earnestness. Conferences and meet-
igs of a very numerous and influential character hwe been
L eld in Edinburgh and Leith and the neighbourhood dm.: lig
the past week. Dr. Playfair, Mr. Scott Russell, Mr. Buck-
master, Professor Thomson, and others, have add ressed large
and enthusiastic meetings. Nearly a tl.,usand skilled work.
men were present at a meeting held in the Lecture Hall of
the Industrial Museum on Saturday. An influential com•
mitt* has begn f9rme4 conduct, the epinunAtions,