The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-30 00:00:00

FAIRS BILL.

This bill was read a sec,otl time time.
ESTABLISHED CHEJtiCH (IRELAND) BILL.
The adjourned debate on the amendment that this bill
b 3 read a second time this day six months was resumed
this evening.

The Duke of ARGYLL, who, as mover of the
adjournment., -vovas in possession of the house, said
that it was not, possible or desirable that this debate
should be confined within the limits of the bill before them::
There were other important subjects surrounding it that.
ought to ba introduced into the matter. There was
a duty which those interested in the bill ought
perform, and that waii4 that they ought to give,
to the Irish people,au imperial guarantee that this imporz
tint bill should receive the, fullest consideration, and he
believed that not even an adverse vote thereon

would repudiate it. They had made the disesta-
blishment
of yl.. the... Irish: Church a great party
question, and he did not deny. it. For this they had been,
censured by the bench of bishops and by members of the
Government. The noble duke, the President of the Council, ;
had told them that theirpelicy was a dishonest policy. BO '
those offensive" expressions excited no anger in his
mind. . Ho would tell 'the' noble dukes and earl's
opposite that no 'such `motives actuated them. 1.10
held it-to be the duty of great party leaders to introduce
great questions) and not to: be withheld from bringitig
them forward., Howes surprised to hear that their potter
had been stigniatied as dishonest. The conduct:of the-
-1 party to which ho belonzed had always been the first to i
precipitate any, great measure. Take, for instance,-
the qnestion of Inform ; - it was their 'object 4
to obtain it, "and,: how - it was their b6iinden
! duty to connect their feelings in concert with
their own political body, and there would be no
greater test of their Sincerity than to connect their 'own
opinions with the foi'tunbs of their own political"- party.
(Hear, hoar.) . They wished to save the funds of the Irish
Church, and this was
-quite at variance with the opinions
of - a noble lord, who said that the funds of the Irish
Church were so groat chat he proposed to divide them
among six . millions of the Irish people; It
was most important to preserve these funds
from being wasted.- They nll knew there were more
bishops than were necessary, and more livings than people
to support them, and ha asserted that every year they lost
they were spending -money Vehiell might be consoli -
'dated. - They were every year by rejecting this bill
doing nothing but pure mischief by allowing money
to be uselessly spent. He wished to say another word on
this bill, that was the bearing that it hal to the ReSolu li
-
, tions in the House oT Commons. It was urged that there
might be a quibble on thoplrt.of the Opposition that the
word disendowment was not used in the It •solutions in the
House of Commons, but that the word " disestablish-
mat " woul I be supplie 1. New, n, lonnau boiug
thought of such a thing as total d:s.!il rituent—it SVS
only . a
___qestion how farthe-,-.41,A,.i1")zai11. -
,oul,
go 3 -and those- Who- viitednort''Ha's. DM: wore q...
~,4,,,
at liberty to go as far as they- 'chose with the ,
question of tliseudowinent. This was a bi.l for the pur-
pose of saving a waste of funds and nothing else, and the
ultimate disposal of those fun Is would be a question for
the house to determine hereafter. The reason why
bisho...s were not appeinted to sees where their
a fount of emolument would be uncertain, was that
they considered it impossible to ask high officers of the
Church to bo appointed under such conditions, and there-
fore they introduced the clause that during such intermis-
sion no appointment should b 3 made. Another prelate hal
stated that such a condition of the church would kill
it by inches, and if he thought so h 3 should oppose the
bill. But he, however, considered that the bill would in-
troduce such a train of consequences that a compromise
would take place in one or two years, and
that would effect the object in view. Public
men have convictions, as all should well
know, which they could not put into shape, and this was
the case with the Liberal party with regard to the Irish
Church. The noble duke then alluded to the sentiments
formerly expressed by 31r. Gladstone, and said that he
must protest against certain quotation; as he did not
think that the exact words were quoted.

The Earl of DERBY—Yes I did, 1 assure you.
The Duke of ARGYLL said that ha would, however,
refer to the spoech of Mr. Gladstone of March 28, 1858.
That speech was unfavourable to the Irish Church,
and there was not one sentiment favourable to
tho Irish Church that the right honourable
gentleman did not tra.varsa, but there was not one sen-
tence which was inconsistent with what he now proposed.
What was tho use of charging them al I twitting them
that they did not bring forward the question of the dises-
tablishment of the Irish Church?

The Bishop of OXFORD read, written broadly over the
whole of the Duke of Argyll's courageous speech, the title
"Presbyterian." He asserted that, whatever might be
alleged, there was a clear intention to disendow, and the
expediency and justice of this he denied. The circum-
stances of the Canadian Church were entirely unlike those
of the Irish Church. A nation or a church in its youth
could dispense with endowments. A nation's youth was
the time of endowments; but a church which had once
been endowed formed, as did men, habits from these eir_
cumstanzes, and it was ungenerous and unfair, in spite of
Mr. Spurgeon's congratulations to the Irish Church on its
threatened fate, to abandon it, despoiled of its ancient en-
dowment, to an equal conflict with religious bodies which
had not been endowed. He maintained that to confiscate
the property of the Irish Church, which was still the
Church of St. Patrick, would, besides being most unjust
to the 700,000 Protestant souls, be unjust to the Church of
Ireland itself, and would be to ant the per alty before al-
lotting the blame—blame which, when the accounts were
fairly cast up, would be found to attach first of all to the
English Government, which had, as Boulter, Spen-
ser, and Swift proved, made the Irish Church
the meanest instrument of our misrule. He
urged, finally, the rejection of this measure, as
what might be, he would repeat, represented as an attempt
to buy off assassins ; as unfair, since it made the Irish
Church the State's whipping-boy ; as inexpedient and un-
grateful, since it would deprive Ireland of the most intel-
ligent and energetic class of the community ; and as a
scheme which would, in deference to the sentimental
grievance which persons felt at the possession of property
by their neighbours, endanger the highest religious and
political interests of the country.
Lord SHAFTESBURY was vehemently opposed to the
disestablishment of the Irish Church. He, moreover, con-
sidered the Bill feeble, meagre, and insignificant. But he
feared that its rejection on the eve of an election might
be used to induce a feeling that the house was opposed to
a full inquiry on this subject, and might thus prove in-
jurious to the Irish Church. He concluded by announc-
ing his intention, out of regard to the opinion of friends, of
taking no part in the division.
Tho Duke of RICHMOND thought the minority argu-
ment a dangerous one. At all events, th' Legislature
would certainly not in past times have entertained a plan
for disestablishing, the Irish Church ; and, as the propor-
tion of its members to the population had increased, there
was less reason for doing it now than formerly. He be-
lieved that the Irish Church had a perfectly good tide to
its endowment 3, and that to deprive it of them would be,
on all grounds, impolitic and unjust.
Lord HOUGHTON was of opinion that the arguments
which had been urged against the bill were equally op-
posed to Protestantism at largo and to all reformation
whatever. The bill was, he thought, required on every
principle of justice. The grievance which it was designed
to remedy had been ridiculed by the Bishop of Oxford as
a sentimental grievance. But he could tell him that sen-
timental grievances might become very practical ones if
not attended to.

Lord BAN[)ON considered that the Irish Church could
make out a good historical claim to its estates, which were
not, in fact,•spoils of the Roman Catholic Church, and that
there was no connexion between Fenianism and this ques-
Xie had been u4a).* to discover any parallel to this

bill bit in the history of the sorceress Medea. The
Church of England and of Ireland was one, and injury to
the ono would 1,3 injury to the other. As for the question
of the interests.of Ireland supposed to be likely to be pro-
moted by this bill, the best thing for Ireland would bo to
give it peace and develop° its natural resources, but poli-
tically to have it alone.

Lerd GI2ANAGD thought there was a good deal in the
argument for the bill bmted upon Toniabism, and very
litt'e in that against it derive I from the probabi:ity that
Wsestablishment have the eiTt et of doing away
with the clergy in the character of resident gentry.
Lord CLANC.MTV an 1 Lord Rus4m. both rose on
Lord Granard's resenting his seat. There were load cries
from the Opposition bunches for Lord Russell, and no
c cries from the ~th side; bat, after some pause,
on Lord Hardwick's claiming precedence for Lord Clan-
carty, on the ground of an arrangement suggested by
Lord Granville on Fri lay, cilia there should be, as far as
possibl-, an alternation of speakers from the two sides of
the hoes..., Lord Russell gave way, and Lord Clancarty
opposed the bill.

Lord RUSSELL was of opinion that great art had been
used in avoiding the rcal question at issue, and in throw-
ing dirt on opponents ; and he drew a parallel between
the political conduct of certain former members of the
houses of Russell and Stanley. Passing lightly by ob-
jections to the bill on points of detail, which might be
easily corrected in committee, and the advantages alleged
to accrue to Ireland from the presence of the clergy.as
body of resident gentry,_ ho enoternded that the Irish
Church...not. only failed in pro;noting religi.on_and
- --
were-itlieervuly -objeets.
Pturch, but worked great Irirm by keeping up
among the people the feeling of an inequality. This
might, indeed, have been assuaged had Mr. Pitt's,
pledge given at the Union been redeemed. As it was, a
cure of this grievance of inequality was imperatively de-
manded. He himself, at one time had thought, but he
thought no longer, that an endowment of the other reli-
gious bodies in Ireland would be sufficient. Tho Conser-
vative party in this House appeared ready to reject the
'laser° of relief which this bill contained, notwithstand-
int its approval by a majority of the House of Commons ;
bukhe warned them, by reference to the precedents of the
Catholic Relief, Corn Law Repeal, and Reform Bills, that
if this bill were rejected, bills would be sent up from the
other, house by still increasing majorities for the
and diseiedowment of the Irish Church. He pro-
6eededto defend the conduct of the late Ministry in not
havingmndertaken a measure of this sort together with a
Reform,Bill, and concluded by expressing. his confident
convict* that none of the fatal consequences predicted
by the opponents of this bill would follow.

The LORD CHANCELLOR said that this bill pro-
fessed to be a mere corollary, and that the preposition
whence it followed, which had not been brought, indeed,
'before this house, was embodied in the resolution of the

House of Cemmons that the Church of Ireland should
Corse to exist as an Established Church, -which implied
both disendowtnent and dissostablishmeut. These were
the real issues now at stake. But the bill, the very title
of which was a misnomer, was, apart from the- conse-
("ponces which it involved, so full of faults of detail that
the only possible waY.of remedying it in committee would
-be bystriking out every clause. By it the succession of
the Church, •uninterrupted for ages, would be broken off,
not because something had been determined, but because
it might bo=w;ith the result that the national Churoh
.Ntoulcl be placed in a worse position than any voltintary
p4nrch, and that the working in the different dioceses of
the island would become entirely unequal. In the course
of a very elaborate review of the bill, for which he denied
that the Act of 1533 was any precedent, he showed that
the consequences to the families of deceased bishops and
incumbents would be calamitous; that one of the most
practical results would be, by suspending the patronage of
the bishops, to deprive 70 out of every 73 curates of all
chance of benefices ; and that generally the action of the
Church, and the process of augmentation of poor livings
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to which the faith of
Parliament was pledged, weuld be paralyzed. Then, pass-
ing from the details, he claimed the' authority
of Lord Palmerston .for the conclusion that the Act
of Union was against the bill ; and he distin-
guished the legislative interference with the Church
Establishment in Australia and Jamaica from the
present attempt. But the bill was said to be re-
quired as-an act of justice. Now, there being admittedly
no rival claimants, there could be no injustice in the re-
tention by the Irish Church of its property— unless, indeed,
the possession of property by any Establishment were an
injustice to other religious itedies, which would be a priu-
ciple as fatal to the lin,glis,;t as to the Trish-Church Estab-
-144inanit-- f44)5041?9.0.41101a11ve4:4.4eat-Aernmieti.,-,
-a-euld then in immaterkLiLl. oa.„gukcalaideary,- the injustice
‘woull be is disturbing a Attlt.lueut. to witllgrjauch of the
physical prosperity of Irelaad duo, and in burdening
the Protestant population with the necessity of creating
a now fund for the support of religion. He thought no
better of the other ground on which this bill was put
viz , policy. It was the land question on which popular
interest was concentrated, and the present was an English,
not an Irish question. The bill, then, would not con-
ciliate the disaffected, but it would offend and irritate the
most thrifty and loyal portion of the nation ; it would pro-
duce two classes of absentees, the Protestant clergy
and gentry ; still further, it would cripple and die-
hearten the Protestant Church in Ireland, driving
those outside the large towns into Catholicism,
and, however deep now the affection of Englishmen
for their Church, perhaps preparing the way for the
overthrow even of that ; and this legislative inter-
ference with corporate property might prove perilous to
the rights of private property, which rested, like corporate
property, upon law, and the law as to which was equally
susceptible of change. He concluded by keenly criticising
the origin and objects of the bill, and by advising the
house, without being moved by the decision come to by
the House of Commons, to judge the, bill on its own
merits, and to reject it as an attack on sacred property, on
the supremacy of the Crown, and on the interests of Pro-
testantism and of peace in Ireland. _ _

After a much interrupted personal explanation by the
Earl of Carnarvon,

Earl GR,AN VILLE, in a lively reply to the objections
to the bill, drew attention again to his arguments, which
remained unanswered, Respecting the disestablishment of
the Church in the colonies. Ho would not follow the
Lord Chancellor's minute criticism on the details of the
bill, but ho believed them capable of full defence. He
then adverted to the observations of the Bishop of Oxford,
who however, ho said, had spoken with so much gaiety of
the probable consequences from the bill that it was impos-
sible to think he believed the fortunes of the Church of
England in jeopardy ; to expressions, which he deplored,
of the Primate of Ireland on the division of races in that
country ; to attacks in particular by Lord Salisbury, on his
quotation of the opinions of foreigners, and to the argu-
ments of Lord Derby and other peers on the obligation of
the Coronation Oath.
The house then divided :
For the Second Reading 97
Against it
Majority against the Second Reading —95
The house adjourned at five minutes to 3 o'clock.

liOUSE OF COMMONS—LAST EVENING.
The SPEAK= took the Chair at 4 o'cloe':.
QUEEN'S COUNSELLORS.

Mr. L A.BOUC HERE asked the Secretary of State for the
Home Dopartment whether he would object to lay upon
the table of the House a return, from the time when the
late Lord Chancellor Brougham became Lord Chancellor, of
the number of barriste• s who had received patents of pre-
cedency and patents constituting them of counsel to the
Cro .vn, commonly called Queen's counsel or King's coun-
sel ; distinguishing in such return the number of barristers
receiving such patents respectively during the holding of
the Great Seal by each Lord Chancellor respectively ; and
stating the date of the call to the bar of each such bar-
rister.
Mr. G. HARDY said if a return were moved for there
would be no opposition, but he could not see that any ad-
vantage would be dervied from the issue of such return.
THE ORNAMENTAL WATER IN REGENT'S PARK.
Mr. HANKEY asked the First Commissioner of Works
whether his attention had been called to the way in which
the work conriected with the Ornamental Water in the
Regent's Park is being carried out, and whether the gra-
dients have not been made at an angle extremely dan-
gerous in the event of any porson, especially children,
slipping into the water.
Lord J. MANNERS had had his attention called to the
subject, but ho was inclined to think that the angle was
just what it ought to be—(laughter)—but the subject wag
still under consideration.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT IN IRELAND.
Mr. PIM asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether
it was his intention to l•ty upon the table, Lefore the end of
the present session, the bill for extending to Ireland the
principle of the Local Government (England) Act, 1858,
and the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act,
1862.
The Earl of MAYO was understood to say that ho
would lay such a bill upon the tale.
VOLUNTEER OFFICERS AT WINDSOR REVIEW.
Lord ELCIIO asked the Secretary of State for War,
whether, in justice to the whole Volunteer force, any in-
quiry had been made, or would bo made, to ascertain what
Volunteer regiments or Volunteers showed a want of dis-
cipline of Saturday last ; and who were the officers that
left their regiments on that occasion.
Sir J. PAKINGTON had a conversation with General
Li4c4sy on the subject on the Dlonday after the rgievr,