The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-17 00:00:00

it was based upon a principle and regulated by conduct far dif-
ferent from that which had been pursued with reference to the
Catholic Church of Er gland—( Hear, hear)—not to the Church
of England in this country alone, but in Canada, in Ireland, in
India, "in Australia, and, above all, in Wales.—( Loud
cheers.) Yes, the English Church did feel herself aggrieved,
insulted, and wronged—( Loud cries of 6. Hear, hear")—and
although he did not hope that this grant would Protestsntise
Ireland, he was not altogether sure that he might not draw an
augury front this magnanimity towards Maynooth and the
Church of Rome of a speedy recurrence to a fairer mode of
action, and a more generous conduct towards the Church
of England—( Hear, hear)—and whilst disposed to look
upon it as the exhibition of the olire branch to the
Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, he was also happy to
view it a• the dawn of that happy day—the advent of confi-
dence and peace to the English Church.—(Cheers.) He
voted for that grant, because he did not conceive hinssell
called upon as a Churchman to oppose it. He voted for it
because he recognised it as the type of an honest intention to
do a measure of justice towards the Roman Catholics of
Ireland, whom the people of this country had so long oppressed
and injured, and because he thought it might tend, however
remotely, to accelerate the advent of that happy day when, in
the mutual confession of their folly and their pride, and with
tears of sorrow and of joy, they should kneel down before the
common altars of their common faith—(Hear, hear)—a con-
summation which, he believed, could alone avail to Christianise
our enormous and expanding empire of commerce and manu-
facture—a consummation which, he believed, could alone avail
to give to labour its just reward, to heal the sores and bind up
the bleeding wounds of Ireland, and to render England again
what she was once, the queen of the nations, towering aloft
amid the empires of the world, striking her roots down deep
and wide into the riche-t memories of the past, and spreading
her fruitful branches to the measureless expanse of an unseen
futurity.—( Loud cheers. )
Mr. RUTHERFORD, who could scarcely be heard in the
gallery, in consequence of the noise prevailing at the bar and
in the body of the House, was understood to say that he could
not think of giving a silent vote upon a subject like the pre-
sent, for whether he looked to the history of Ireland or to the
original institution of the College of Maynooth, in every aspect
he found that this measure was imperatively called for. This
Rill was an earnest to Ireland that she would now reap the
fruits of her union with this country—a union which might be
supposed, if they looked merely to the past, to have been en-
tered into for the mere purposes of oppression and degradation,
but which now, lie trusted, would be used for nobler pur-
poses. He might not please his constituents by the vote he
intended to give on this subject, but minor considerations must
give way before the performance of his duty. lie should.
therefore, support the second readi se of the measure.
Mr. SMYTHE—I remember to have read, Sir, a remark
made by the Right. Hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the
Treasury, when he proposed a measure somewhat analogous to
this—l mean when he brought forward the Catholic Relief
Bill—when he stated, that one of the reasons which induced him
to anticipate that the measure must, sooner or later, be car-
ried, was the fact that all the young men of the day who bad
recently come from the universities were in favour of Catholic
emancipation. I think it rather strange that in the course of
these debates, and in the Right lion. Gentleman's own Go-
vernment, we may remark the same distinctions. We see
the Right Hon. Gentleman, who has upon this occasion pur-
sued a liberal, a wise, and a conciliatory course, followed in
that liberal, and wise, and conciliatory course by the Right
Hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War (Mr. S. Herbert), anti
by my Noble Friend who has addressed the Honse this even-
ing, the Member for Lynn ( Lord Jocelyn), whilst at the same
time we find the Right Hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, still so true to his ancient reminiscences, that
he cannot speak of the Roman Catholic priests, even in
bringing in a measure of grace and of concession, without say-
ing that the education at Maynooth was as disgraceful to the
country which affords the means of sustaining this education
as it was degrading to the priests who receive it ; and the
Right Hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland speaks of
the measure as an act of charity.—( Hear, hear.) Now, feeling
strongly that the subject is most important, it is on no such
grounds that I can brine myself to support it. I remember
that, two years ago, as has been stated by my Noble Friend, I,
in common with him, anticipated the Right Hon. Gentleman's
suggestion. Unfortunately my watch was upon this, as upon
other occasions, five minutes too fast. And I need not tell the
House that there is a considerable difference between going
before or going in company with the Right Hon. Gentleman.
—(Cheers.) I remember upon that occasion to have incurred
much odium and some misconstruction from those who believed,
with too fond a credulity, that " concession had reached its
utmost limit"—(Cheers)—and I particularly remember an
attack of the Noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord
Sandon)—and I can assure the Noble Lord I do not remember
it for its severity—upon the rashness and forwardness of youth.
I think I might now retort upon the rashness and forwardness
of riper age, on the proverbial extravagance of young conver-
sions;and protest against the principle of restitution, which, if
the Noble Lord means it, he ought to vote against this grant as
an absurdity ; and which, if he do not mean it, is a wanton in-
sult of the Member for Liverpool against and to the Irish Pro-
testant Establishment. But the Noble Lord is an hereditary
waverer.—( Cheers. ) However, if I was a worse courtier
than the Noble Lord, I was a better judge. I never
doubted that the Right Hon. Gentleman, who has been
characterised by the Hon. Gentleman the Member for Shef-
field as the great doer of his age—(Laughter)—as he had
done Emancipation so would he do Maynooth.—( Cheers.)
I was not deceived by the extreme Protestantism of the Right
Hon. Gentleman's adolescence—he was then the Member for
the University of Oxford. Nor am I among those who believe
that the Right Honourable Gentleman is the enemy of Ireland;
although it is susceptible of some doubt whether Ireland is not
the enemy of the flight lien. Gentleman. Ile treats it so
considerately, so caressingly—almost as caressingly as if it was
an opposition ; he carries all the measures that it wants, and
among them none was ever wiser, or juster, or more necessary
than the present Bill. And among the many contrasts which
the Right Hon. Gentleman's lone career affords, there is none
which history will record more favourably than the contrast
between Mr. Secretary Peel and Sir Robert Peel, the Prime
Minister of England.—(Hear, hear.) The young and pro-
scribing partisan has become the clement and beneficent ruler
the young Octavius of intolerance is merged in the Augustus
of conciliation and of grace.—(Cheers.) The Right Hon.
Gentleman may in this matter rely on the sincerity of my con-
gratulations, because I know full well how much they will cost
me. I know full well what odium I incurred by my sugges-
tions in a former year among an archiepiscopal constitu-
ency not to be well aware that I shall again be at issue with
that same archiepiscopal constituency. But, although I
prefer my own convictions to theirs in this matter, lam
not surprised that theirs are so strong, conaideriag the pains
that have been taken to excite them.—( Hear, hear.) The
pamphlets, the tracts, the speeches, the itinerant lec-
turers trading on their own imaginative crapulence : even a
Member of this House has condescended to string together a
bead-roll of indecencies—a rosary of abominations. Suppose
the Irish were to retaliate ; suppose they were to compile a
cento from the class- books of our own colleges and schools ;
suppose you take the celebrated line of Euripides—
" My tongue has swornit, but my mind is unworn."
—(Cheers.) Suppose we take a passage from Terence, an
ode of Catullus about Mamurra, a sentiment from the sympo-
sium of Plato, or a morality of Paley, it would be quite as
easy, 1 suspect, to alarm the Wesleyans and affright the Inde-
pendents.—(Laughter.) Away, then, with this pharisaical
hypocrisy, which objects to books of examination, catecheti-
catty distributed, but which flings its Lemprieres broadcast
among children; which strains at the calendar, but swallows
the mythology.--( Loud cheers.) But whilst the means are
thus glaringly unfair, I am far from underrating their
effects. I believe it would be as easy now to raise the No-
Popery cry as it was in 1507, or 1827, or 1829. Would that
it might be under the control of such as the Noble Lord the
Member for the county of Dorset (Lord Ashley), whose speech
of this evening was characterised by that great ability, and
that grave sense of responsibility, which always mark the
speeches of the Noble Lord; but this will not be. Would
also that these No-Popery enthusiasts—and Ido not mean
there are any enthusiasts in this House—( A laugh)—would,
in their calmer hour, if they ever have one, look back for the
last 200 years, and pass in review all the men they have be-
lieved in from Titus Oates down to Lord George Gordon—
(Cheers)—and from Lord George Gordon down to our own
time ; and then I think they would agree with me, that all the
superstition is not all upon one side. if at the same time they
should take a retrospective glance at their literature, their
architecture, and their taste, I think they will be less satisfied
than they now are that they, and they alone, are the providen-
tial instruments of England's greatness.—( Hear.) 'f hey will
at any rate find out that they have always been, as they always
wal be, betrayed by their own leaders. The moment a great
Protestant champion enters this lime, still flushed with the
plaudits of Exeter-hall, with the doxology perhaps still wring-
ing in his ears, determined to carry all before him, somehow or
other I observe common sense acts upon him as religion acts
upon a Dervish • he goes round—( Great cheers and laughter)
—he kicks a little, but still he goes; ound ; it is a Parliamen-
tary polka, now practisine
, by the whole of that bench, from the
Right lion. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cam-
bridge down to the lion. Member for the county of Selkirk.
—( Renewed laughter.) And this it is, this going round of the
great Protestant champions, which renders this " No-Popery"
agitation, notwithstanding all its zeal and all its respectabi-
lity—to my mind synonyms—( Bear)—despite all its numbers,
null and inefficient. But of late years another opposition has
arisen to this grant, which, for want of a better name, I will
call the "Anglican opposition." This party was weak in the
House, but it was strong in dialectitians, strong in the Uni-
versities, strong among young men ; and it was supposed, up
to Friday last, to have been represented by the Right Hon.
Gentleman my Right Hon. Friend the Member for Newark
(Mr. Gladstone) ; and it also claimed illustration from his re-
tirement from office : " De civitate decedere malnit quam de
sententia." He left the Cabinet, but he kept his theory.—
(Cheers.) And now does any Hon. Gentleman believe the
Right Hon. Gentleman has really abandoned his theory ?
Abandoned his theory—yes, Sir—as a certain society abandons a
country to return to it on the first convenient opportunity. In
that cloud of variegated phraseology, in which he as usual the
other night wrapped and shrouded his mysterious divinity—
(Cheers )—there was only one phrase which was intelligible to
vulgar mortals like myself. He said, that notwithstanding
his most cherished convictions, he would vote in favour of
this Bill. So then it is most clear that his most cherished
convictions and his votes are at issue. But about the mere
vulgarity of voters, the Right Hon. Gentleman cares little;
for uoon this very question he has voted all ways. Hevoted
first against, then in favour of the grant; he then weennt
the
of office because the grant was to be increased ;. then
measure involving the increased grant came to a
the second
read-
ing—he did not vote at all; we are now
it.at I
reading; he is prepared to vote in favour ofAndh is
himself—
quite Hon. Gentleman—is the Right lion. Gentlemant im"'flit;
quite sure, that upon the third reading he will not
equally good reasons for voting against the measure?—
( Laughter and cheers.) But, with regard to " his most
cherished feelings," I must be permitted to say one word, and
that is, that these feelings are cherished, not by himself
alone, but by many converts whom he has convinced, and by
many fanatics, whose reason his eloquence has helped to
fascinate. And what is their position
is an
What is the princi-
ple laid down by them ? It an old enemy with a Lew
face ; it is the worst principle of absolutism, disguised in the
worst language of the Jesuits; it is the principle of Alva and
the language of Escobar. It begins in a fiction, that because
the State has once placed its affiance to a particular systein
is bound to perpetuate that system, to the exclusion of all othersti
to all time. This, to be true, should be universally true ; and
if it were to prevail at this moment in this country, we should
still have the Ptolemaic system in our observatories, and Sir
Isaac Newton might only be known somewhat as the Right
Hon. Gentleman may he known—as a crotchety theologian,
but a capital master of the Mint.—(Laughter.) But if this
itr ibnecgi
ipnl es
in begins in fiction, it ends in pains and penalties ;if
isophistry, it ends in persecution; it is, in one
Word, the old, vicious, cruel, effete principle of uniformity.—
(Cheers.) Sir, whet' hertlt Right Hon. Gentleman argued
against or in favour of this principle I think his
position is
equally untenable.—( Hear, hear.) The Right Hon. Gentle-
man, as an author, wrote in favour of the principle of uni-
formity; but the argument made use of by the First Lord of
the Treasury in the introduction of this measure was unan-
swerable. That argument, characterised by an Hon. Member
as " the colonial argument," was this—that the State has.
fur 150 years endowed Presbyterianism in &Aland, paid
Presbyterianism in Ireland, and acted, as we heard
last Aht froM an Honourable Member ( Mr, Hume),
throughout the whole of our vast peninsula of India, and else-
where in our dependencies. But the Right lion. Gentleman
( Mr. Gladstone), or rather the Right Hon. Author, had a
vision of his own ;he was dazzled by the recollection of eleven
years in our history, when, to use his own phraseology, many
gentlemen of " the Church had exclusive possession of the pre-