The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-05 00:00:00

GRANT to MAYNOOTH COLLEGE

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

TlMES.—There is something quite ludicrous in the State con.
Centrating all its sympathies and all its expenditure on the college
Instead of the parish, in making priests instead of maintaining
them. Paying clergy when we find them, that is, because there
they are, and the people will have them, seems a far less departure
from principle than actually producing them, and sending them
into the country. Maynooth is, in fact, a missionary college. Sir
Robert Peel is a second St. Patrick, sending fresh and more accom.
plished emissaries to fight their own way in a barbarous country.
We feed the Protestant clergy, but teach and train the Catholic
student ; and then send the latter to usurp the former's
nominal kingdom. Of course the grant is fated. Even
if it had been contingent on the result of a debate, there
was nothing last night to damage its prospects. The
two University Members, Sir Robert Inglis and Mr.
Law, resisted it ex officio, and the former con amore, but with ar.
guments which have ceased to persuade the British Legislature.
Messrs. Gregory and Plumptre also protested in the name of their
several parties, the latter without any compromise et tone; and,
strange to say, Mr. T. Duncombe took the semi line. Lord
Sandon, however, not having the fear of M'Neill before his eyes,
gave in his adhesion to the measure. Lord John Russell supplied
to Sir Robert that cordiality which he so painfully is in want of
from his own benches, and Mr. Ward and Mr. Shen also brought
their quota of support. The Member for Sheffield goes farther than
the present Government measure, and also feels an objection, In
which we beg to express our entire sympathy, against giving good
English money to this doubtful purpose. Ireland ought at least to
maintain its own schools and clergy.
HERALD.—Our readers have now before them the provisions
of the Bill for the increase of the Maynooth fluid. We can hardly
expect any who object to the measure upon principle will be recon-
ciled to it by a consideration of its details ; but we are of opinion
that few reasonable men will dispute the justice of Sir Robert
Peel's description of the three.fold alternative presented to the
country and to the Legislature, viz.—First, to break off all con-
nexion with the Maynooth establishment, and, after providing for
existing Interests, discontinue the annual grant. Or, secondly, to
go on as we have been going on for fifty years. Or, thirdly, to
adopt the measure now proposed. Sir Robert Peel described,
without exaggeration, the penury and sordidness of the establish-
ment in which the religious teachers and political leaders of the
Irish Roman Catholics are prepared. Coming from such a place
could they be different from what they are? This is the
question to be answered by the opponents of the Minis-
terial Bill. But though such penury and sordidness of education
may, and perhaps do, justify rudeness and disaffection in the indi-
viduals who have suffered by them, they are no justification of
those who ought to have obviated them—the preceding race of Ro.
man Catholic clergymen and the Romanist agitators. They have
drawn (priests and agitators between them) from two millions and
a half to three millions annually from the people for many succes.
sive years; they have built gorgeous cathedrals, and given every
other proof of great wealth ; but to the college in which their
clergy are educated they have not contributed a single penny,
though a small per centage on their receipts would endow a college
as rich as all the colleges in either Oxford or Cambridge taken
together—far richer than the Irish University. They give to
Mr. O'Connell fifty-six thousand pounds a-year! and they leave
their first theologioal professor to subsist upon the public grant of
1201. per annum ! Such an anomaly, so long continued, :cannot
be accidental. It is part of the system b 7 which ftomanifun and
democracy—democracy of the lowest, rudest, and most violent
character—have been long allied in Ireland, to combat the religion
of England and the British connexion. To force a good education
open the Irish priesthood, to let the intelligent Roman Catholic
laity see that we wish their clergy well educated, and that we are
ready to furnish the means, is to out at the root of this alliance;
and such is the necessary tendency of the Ministerial Bill, the
third and only safe branch of the alternative at our command.
ADVERTISER.—Great as is the evil of endowing Catholicism
in Ireland, the circumstance is accompanied with no inconsiderable
good. It has opened the eyes of thousands of English Episcopalians
and Scottish Presbyterians to the evils of religious establishments,
and consequently made them converts to the views we have always
advocated. The former friends of establishments are compelled to
relinquish the ground which they have hitherto taken. They find
they can no longer, vith any consistency or justice, plead for the
State endowment of one religion, and object to the some favour
being conferred on another. Either, as just remarked, all religions
ought to be endowed, or there ought to be no State religions at all.
To the latter conclusion they are at last driven. Within the last few
weeks a greater number of proselytes hare been made to the
anti-State-Church principle, than were made for as many years
before. If it shall turn out, as we hope it will, that the
effect of the endowment of Catholicism in Ireland, will be to
create so powerful and universal a feeling against religious esta-
blishments, as shall lead to their abolition altogether, the event
which we now so deeply deplore, will prove to have been one of
the happiest that could have occurred. Things cannot remain as
they will be after the passing of this Bill. It is not to be expected
that the Roman Catholics of Ireland will be content with the pit..
Lance, inadequate to their rights, if the principle of endowment be
once admitted—given to them like a bone to a discontented dog.
No, they must have more or nothing; they will not be content
with less, without becoming parties to their own degradation.
Here, we mean in Ireland, we have a population of 500,000 Pro-
testants, with a Church endowed to the extent of one million and a
half sterling, while the great mass of the population—the Roman
Catholics of Ireland—consisting of upwards of seven millions of
people, are expected to be satisfied with a grant of some 26,000/.
the crumbs from their masters' table. The insult to them of such
an expectation would be unpardonable, did not the conduct of
their own leaders and their own press justify it.

BANK OF ENGLAND.

(From last Night's Gazette.)

An Account, pursuant to the Act 7th and Bth of Victoria
cap. 32, for the Week ending on Saturday, the 29th day of
March, 1845.

ISSUE DEPARTMENT.
Notes issued 29,471,410 Government debt 11,015,100
Other securities 2,984,900
Gold coin and bul-
lion 13,380,953
Silverbulliou 2,090,457

.£29,471,410 j £29,471,410
M. MARSHALL, Chief Cashier.
Dated the 3d day of April, 1845.

:PARTMENT.

Government secu-
titles (including
Dead Weight
Annuity)
Other securities 13,126,469
Notes 9,747,280
Gold and silver
coin 732.81n

£37,193,938
SHALL, Chief Cashier.

g GE.—(YE STE RDAY.)
Gibraltar . .
Leghorn 3l
Genoa ..... ...... 26 20
Milan
Venice .... .....
Naples ........ ....... 39A
Palermo, I,,er oz llBl
Lisbon s2i
Oporto . 53
Rio Janciro . . 23i
Bahia .
Buenos Ay!-.9
NewYork.:::dyssight
PRJVKA 9ULLION, DER OZ
Foreigt bars.. 43 17 9
Portuga' ,)1d Coin 317 5
New Poublaons .... 0 0 0
New
Silver t. tars 0 4 10i