The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-03 00:00:00

GOVERNMENT'PATRONAGE.

Mr. D. GRlFFll7llaskea the-First liiorTOf the Trea-
sury whether it was the intention of the Government to
advise the Crown to confer a title of dignity on one of the
members for the borough of Thetford ; and whether this
honour is due to any arrangements with the Government
as to the representation of that borough.
Mr. DISRAELI said the hon. member was in the habit
of asking questions which did not comply with the habits
of social life, and, as far as his experience led him, at
variance with political life. On reading the question
he was at a loss to know what was the meaning of it.
He thought at first somebody had been telling the hon.
gentleman sometbing—that somebody had been practising
on his frank intelligence. (Loud laughter.) He then
thought that he had been made the amiable
vehicle of bringing forward some particular
olaim. (Loud laughter.) He must ask the house to grant
him its sympathy whilst he endeavoured to grapple with
the question, which he considered was not put either
in a personal or delicate style. He could not
say who " the one member for Thetford" was.
Neither the Lord Advocate or the other hon. gentle-
man who sat fur the borough had made any application,
an't therefore it had never occurred to him that it was his
dqty to suggest to her Majesty to confer distinction upon
either of the hon. gentlemen.
Mr. HORSMAN said it seemed to him that the arrange-
ments of the Government made the great subject at pre-
sent under the consideration of the house a matter of in-
difference and contempt by their not making it
the subject of the slightest consideration. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. CRAWFORD asked whether it was proposed to
take the second reading of the Irish Reform Bill as at pre-
sent arranged.
Mr. DISRAELI, in reply, said he did not propose to
make any alterations in arrangements already made. The
second reading of the Irish bill would bo taken before that
for Scotland.

The motion that the house at its rising stand adjourned
until the 20th April was then agreed to.
THE REGIUM DONUM.
In reply to Mr. VANcE,
Mr. GLADSTONE said he thought such questions as
those that had been of late putwith respect to withholding
certain votes that it would be the duty of Parliament
to agree to a plan for the further destribution
of the ecclesiastical endowments of the Irish Church, if it
was agreed that endowments should cease, all other en -
dowmonts and grants would also have to be considered.
STAGE PLAYS. _

Dr. BRADY asked the Secretary of State for the Home
Department if his attention had been directed to a para-
graph which had appeared in several of the daily papers to
the effect that the Lord Chamberlain had re-
fused to license a play dramatised by Mr.
Oxenford from Mr. Dickens' celebrated work of " Oliver
Twist ;" and that all plays from the same work were in-
terdicted in London as being offensive to parish beadles ;
and whether he approved of the Lord Chamberlain's con-
sideration for the feelings of the parish authorities?
Mr. HARDY said it was altogether a mistake, as Mr.
Oxenford's play had been licensed.
THE IRISH CHURCH—THE AWOURNED
DEBATE.

Mr. COLERIDGE resumed the adjourned debate, and
strongly supported the disendowment of the Irish Church
from an English Churchman's point of view.

[LEFT BITTING]

HOUSE OF COMMONS-LAST EVENING,
THE IRISH CHURCH-LORD STANLEY'S
AMENDMENT.

Mr. ROEBUCK then resumed the adjourned debate by
presenting a number of petitions in favour of the disen-
dowment of the Irish Church. He said the subject which
at present occupied the Parliament was one of the
utmost importance, and each member of the house
would have to state boldly the view he took of the pro-
position, and ho had no hesitation in saying that he
should vote in favour of the resolution of the right hon.
gentleman (Mr. Gladstone.) He was one of those who
looked at any Church establishment as a bad instrument
for teaching religion, and it was idle to say that which the
house had established it could not disestablish. (Hear,
hear.) He hoped that no party trick was intended on
the present occasion, and that if they on his side of the
house ousted the Government, as he thought they would
—(hear, hear, and laughter)—the right hon. gentleman who
had brought forward the resolutions would be prepared to
introduce abill to carry out his object. (Immense cheer-
ing.) In his opinion, if Ireland was separated from this
country it would bo cutting off the right hand of
.Eng-
land, and the house was called upon to do eveqthin.g
its power to maintain Imperial rule in I. reland unimpaired.
That rule must be maintained under all circumstances. He for
part of the British empire from the other.
one would never assent to any proposition to weaken or
disarm one
(Gtiftgli.)

Mr. HENLEY said it appeared to him that the real
question at issue was the repeal of the union, a proposition
he could never consent to. He was convinced that the
proposition of Mr. Gladstone would fail as a measure of con-
ciliation or pacification. It was nothing more than play-
ing into the hands of those who wished to dissolve the
union between the two countries. Holding this convic-
tion, he felt he would be a traitor to his country, to his
Sovereign, and to his God if he were to give his vote for
the resolutions proposed by the leader of the Opposition.
General PEEL was persuaded that if the house were to
agree to the resolutions the inevitable result would be
separation of Church and State in England, and the repeal
of the union in Ireland. Tho reason for the disaffection
that prevailed in Ireland was that England had always
sympathised with revolutions elsewhere. The letter which
the Premier had written to the Earl of Dartmouth con-
tained sentiments to which it was to be hoped he would
adhere, although he owned that ho was not sanguine as
to the constitutional tone of the Administration. For his
own part he viewed the threatened changes in Church
and State which hal lately taken place with consider-
able apprehension, and ho owned that ft "No surren ler "
was to mean no dissevering of the connection between the
Irish Church and the State, ho was pr.ipared, as a member
of the old Tory party, to adopt that cry. Doubting, thore-
foro, the policy of the original motion, and also that of the
amendment, he should vote against both.
Mr. LOWE invited the house to look at the religious
statistics of Ireland, which showed that of every 100 of
the population 78 were Roman Catholics, 12 members of
the State Church, nine Presbyterians, and one waif or
stray. There was a simple eloquence about those figures
which he owned went to his heart. T welre per cent of
the population, and that the most wealthy portion, had an
endowed and Established Churih, while the 78 per cent.,
who were the poorest, had no provision whatever for
their spiritual wants beyond that which they supplied for
themselves. This arrangement reminded him of Dives and
Lazarus, with this exception, that whereas Lazarus got the
crumbs from the rich man's table, the Catholics of Ireland got
nothing—but insult. It might, he knew, be thrown in the
teethof the Liberal party that they had not moved earlier in
this matter. Ho regretted they had not ; but that argument
could no longer be used. Tho hour and the man had now
come. The Liberal party had got their leader, and they
would not shrink from the challenge they ha I thrown
down. /Referring next to the letter of the Premier to Lord
Dartmouth, he asked whether "the sacred union" be-
tween the Irish Church and the English State had not
tsulf been brought about by an Act of Parliament carried
by means the reverse of sacred. The whole course of the
Government last year on the subject of Reform, and this
year with respect to the Irish Church, was weak, vacil-
lating, and contemptible. The letter to Lord Dartmouth was
utterly inconsistent with the amendment of the Foreign Se-
cretary, for while the former proclaimed a creed and hoisted
a standard, the latter gave up the Establishment alto-
gether. Such hollow devices would no longer have any
effect upon the public, and the Premier would find that
the limit of human gullibility had been reached. The
Irish Church stood on a rotten foundation. It was based
on the dominant rights of the few over the many, and it
must not be allowed to stand. Why, he asked, should
such a corpse be united to the living body of the English
Church ? It was like an exotic purchased at a groat price
and brought from a far country, but planted in an un-
congenial soil and in an unfavourable climate. It had the
curse of barrenness upon it; it expanded no leaves; it bore
no blossoms ; it yielded no fruit, and the sooner it was cut
down the better, for it cumbered the ground.
Mr. HORS FALL apprehended that if the Church of
Ireland weto disendowed the Church of England would be
in danger of suffering a similar fate.

Mr. OLIVE was in favour of making some provision for
the ministration of religion, for voluntaryism pure and
simple often led to fanaticism, as in the case of America.
Speaking on behalf of the University of Dublin, Mr.
LEFROY denounced the scheme of disendowmeut as
unconstitutional and unjust, and as calculated to produce
much mischief in Great Britain as well as in Ireland.

Sir J. GRAY quoted statistics to show the anomalies of
the Irish Church, and which he insisted amounted to an
intolerable scandal. The Stata Church had btien forced
upon an unwilling people in Ireland, literally at the point
of the sword, and yet it had never taken root in the COUII-.
try, and after nearly three centuries continued to be, not
an object of esteem and veneration, but the badge of ascen-
dency and the emblem of degradation.
Lord C. J. HAMILTON contended that Mr. Bright had
underestimated the number of Episcopalians in Ireland,
and declared that the majority of the people of that coun-
try were not in favour of disendowment of the Church.
He warned the house how it tampered with the ecclesias-
tical establishment of the Protestants of Ireland.

Mr. OSBORNE having reminded the house that he had
himself some years since proposed the reform of the Irish
Church, and had been told by the Opposition that he would
endanger the Establishment, and by his friends that the
time for action had not arrived, charged the Whigs with
being wakeful in opposition and sleepy in office. Ho ad-
mitted that the resolutions before the house were strong,
but they had been suddenly forced upon Parliament in the
shape of a party question by the apathy and vacillation of
the leaders at either side. The spiritual staff of the Pro-
testant Church in Ireland was ludicrously in excess o: the
wants of the Episcopalians. For 693,000 Anglicans, 12
bishops and upwards of 2,000 clergy were provided. Ap-
plying the same episcopal power to England, there ought
to be 240 bishops, and about 50,000 ecclesiastics. If reform
and not disendowment were to be the remedy for the
abuses of the Church, the Establishment should be reduced
to the actual wants of the people. Ono bishop for each
province with £2,000 a year, and a body of 500 clergy
would be amply sufficient for the legitimate requirements
of the Protestants. He did not believe that disendowment
and disestablishment alone would pacify Ireland. No
single measure could effect that object. Time alone could
efface the memory of the bitter wrongs which Ireland
had suffered at the hands of England. Just and liberal
measures might eventually pacify the country, and
the sooner they were brought forward the better
for, however delay might suit the exigencies of a
Government, it was dangerous to the wellbeing of a
nation.

Sir S. NORTHCOTE characterised the tactics of the
Opposition as an attempt to upset the Government by an
abstract resolution framed to catch as many votes as pos-
sible. The course which the Government intended to
adopt was in the first instance to take exception to the time
selected for entering on the consideration of the subject
They would consequently challenge the first resolution,
that the Speaker leave the chair, and, if beaten upon that,
they would meet the Opposition on the resolution in do-
tail. The gist of the amendment put forward by the Go-
vernment was that in the present position of Parliament
the house could not with advantage deal with a question so
grave and s) complicated. He objected to the resolutions
on the ground of their vagueness. What, he asked,
was to be done with the surplus funds, and what
was the meaning of the phrase that they were to be ap-
plied to " some Irish object." Did the leader of the
Opposition mean to spend the money on Cork harbour or
on the reduction of the duty on whisky ? To abolish the
Protestant Church in Ireland was not, in his opinion, the
best way of pacifying the country. Ho did not believe it
would satisfy the Roman Catholics, while it would irritate
the feelings and hurt the susceptibilities of the Protes-
tants.

At midnight, on the motion of Mr. Coleridge, the debate
was adjourned until this day.
In reply to Mr. Gladstone,

Mr. DISRAELI said as he had no doubt the discussion
would be brought to a conclusion to-night, he hoped to be
able to meet the wish of the 'douse by submitting a mo-
tion for adjournment at its rising over the Easter holidays.
The remaining business on the paper was disposed of
and the House adjourned at a quarter-past twelve o'clock.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, April 2.

The announcement that the Princess of Wales
will accompany the Prince on his visit to Dublin has
at length been officially confirmed, and the cloud of
suspense which rested for a while upon the public
mind and chilled the ardour of its loyal anticipations
is now dispersed. A reaction of joyous excitement
has set in and redoubled efforts will be made to give
such a reception to the Princess as may be creditable
to the city. The illuminations which were included
in the programme of festive demonstrations will, it
is expected, be general and upon a more brilliant
scale. Although the procession from the Castle
to St. Patrick's upon the day of the instal-
lation has been shorn of much of its popular
attractiveness by the omission of the knights,
who are to stand not upon the order of their
going, but to proceed to the cathedral before its
arrival, it will be an imposing pageant,
pre-
sence of the Princess in the cortege
.imparting a
lustre to it which it would not otherwise possess.
the
numerous, and it
and the Royal party will
.be
The equipages of his Excellency the Lord-Lieute-
nantconveinent lengthf if all the
kwnoiuglhdtsprwoeloren
gto"jetionthe arrange-
ments will bo explained in a few days b
an inconvenient
details o
by the publi-
cation of the official programme. There is no
ground whatever for the statement that any Van-
dalism is being committed in the cathedral. The
utmost care and vigilance have been exhibited by
Sir Bernard Burke, and the monuments and fittings
of the sacred edifice will be fully protected. Some
of the alterations which have been made are mani-
fest improvements, which'ivill probably be allowed
to remain, but distinct arrangements have been
entered into for having the cathedral restored to
its former state. The chair used by William 111.
will not be brought into requisition on the occa-
sion. Two Chairs of State of Irish yew are being
manufactured in Dublin for the Grand Master and
thq rritioe,