The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-12 00:00:00

belonged, by whatever name they might choose to call them-
selves, had always been the greatest enemies of Ireland. The
Hon. Gentleman had come down to-night to explain the
present position of the Irish Church, and had at-
tacked them for bringing the condition of that Church
Mole the public. He would not now stop to ascertain to what
the fact was to be attributed that the Church had not up to
the present time made one convert more since the hour it was
planted. It might perhaps he owing to the maladministration
and mismanagement of its funds. The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman asked them to have pity upon the poor Church of
Ireland, because it had only 81 pluralities.—( Hear, hear.)
He could not have believed that any Church could have found
a defender that had so many.—(" Oh," and cries of " Hear,
hear " from Mr. Shaw.) He took a very different view of these
matters from the Hon. and Learned Gentleman. He told the Hon.
and Learned Gentleman how he, as a Roman Catholic, regarded
these things. The Hon. Gentleman took credit for the fact of
there only being 109 incumbents of the Church not being
in benifices, so that, acaordiag to the Hon. Gentleman's
own admission, one-fourteenth of the beneficed clergy of Ire-
land were absentees. They could have no better authority
for that fact than that of the champion of the Established
Church of Ireland. There perhaps might be an excuse for
the absenteeism in Ireland, because it so happened that in many
parishes in Ireland there was not a single Protestant.—(Hear,
hear.) In the parish in which he resided sneh was the case—
(Hear, hear)—and in the whole union there was not thirty
persons who attended the parish church.—( Hear, hear.) It
was monstrous that the motion of the Right Hon.. Member for
Sheffield, which only asked for a Committee of inquiry into
the state of this Church, should be refused by the Go-
vernment.—( Hear, hear.) He would not stop to offer
an opinion as to the manner in which such an announcement
would be received in Ireland. The policy of the Right Hon.
Baronet was a most dangerous pelicy.—( Hear, hear.) It was
never to leave a stand which he had taken until the tide came
and drove him back from Isis position. He, a Roman Catholic,
told the Right Hon. Baronet this. He was one of those whom
the Right Hon. Baronet had emancipated, but whose emanci-
pation he had through the greater part of his life bitterly op-
posed, and he stood there a living example that the policy which
the Right Hon. Baronet pursued for a great part of his life was
false and untenable.—( Hear, hear.) He was surprised to hear
it said that the Catholic peasantry paid no tithes. The instant
each tithe Bill had passed the landlords had raised the rents, on
the ground that they had to pay the tithes.
Mr. F. SHAW—They must get it in one way or another.
Mr. REDINGTON thought the Thin. and Learned
Gentleman seemed really to think that this qnestion of the
Church in Ireland was only a question of pounds, shillings,
and pence.. He wished to guard against its being supposed,
for one moment, that he wished to transfer the revenues of that
Church to the Roman Catholics. If he thought that the
present motion would tend, even in the most indirect manner,
to the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland,
or to the payment of its clergy by the State, he would record
his vote against it.—(Cheers.) He bad not yet seen any
example in which the payment or,. a State Church had
ever tended to the benefit of the Church or the State.—

( Cheers.) It was vain to suppose that the Established
Church would long subsist in Ireland. Nothing that
resembled it would be found in an other country on
the face of the earth. While a niggardly grant of 50,0001.
a year only was made for the education of the people—while
that people were taxed to support the poor, was it not mon-
strous that they should be called upon to pay tithes for the
support of this Church, in addition to the immense revenues
which it otherwise enjoyed. The cause of the Hon. Member
for Sheffield was the cause of justice, and although they
might oppose it successfully for the present, yet as sure as
there was justice in Heaven, it must ultimately succeed.
Col. RA WDON moved the adjournment of the debate.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw, but no division
took place, the adjournment of the debate having been
agreed to.