The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-24 00:00:00

he believed, with the wishes of a large number of his

friends, and in perfect accordance with those principles
which, as a party, they had advocated far the last ten
years in that House, it became his duty to
place on record—not their hostility to the Govern-
ment plan, because in every measure of concession

of Boman Catholic rights—in every expression
of justice or of kindness which had fallen from either
side of the House towards those whom they called fellow-

countrymen and fellow-christians, they cordially
and entirely participated—but they refused as to
the mode in which the measure contemplated
for their benefit might be rendered one which would
give permanent satisfaction to Ireland ; and he must
beg to remind Hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House
that they had a double duty to perferua on this
occasion— they had not only to look to tis
natural desire of conciliating 'lreland and sooth-
ing and healing the wrongs which had been done
to that country for three centuries, but they must
also look to England—they must not do away with one
injustice by committing another ; and they must be
aware of counterbalancing the good which they
ill hop,d to do to Ireland by sowing the seeds
of just discontent in this country.—(Hear, hear.)
Ile remembered, when the Noble Lord the Secretary for
the Colonies came forward in that House with what he
called a great measure for Catholic relief by taking off
the vestry cess in Ireland, that Noble Lord desi;,nated
the vestry cess as a galling blister to the Catholics, but
he said that the Irish Church, which would
benefit most largely by this cause of discontent,
ought to bear the whole charge. He wished
to amend this Bill by the principle included
in his amendment, and not by any means to throw it
out ; and he had given some proof of his sincerity, by
submitting to the obloquy which he received by refusing
to concur in a movement, the object of which was to
throw out the Bill on the second reading. That
party had, by the result of last week, proved
itself hostile to the Government measure. A Mem-
ber of Parliament had, in these times, quite enough
to do to answer charges against him founded upon
truth, without submitting to misrepresentation. He had
been accused, by implication, of having betrayed a cause
in which he never embarked. He had had a long ac-
quaintance with the lion. Gentleman, who had taken a
very active part on the Anti-Maynooth Committee, and
placed himself, at a very early period, in commuica-
tion with him (Mr. Ward)—in fact, as soon as
he understood the nature of his motion. He
suggested various alterations in the form of the motion,
so as to make it more palatable to those who acted with
him ; but he (Mr. Ward) declined to accede to every
one of them, assuring him, at the same time, that the
motion he intended to move had no reference to religious
grounds. They wished that time might be given to the
country to express its opinions, but he told these gentle-
men that he entirely concurred in the opinion of the Right
I lon. Baronet at the head of the Government, and in that of
the Noble Lord the Member for the City of London, and
added that he would not give half an hour more than
the forms of the House absolutely required. [Here the
noise in the House became so great, and the bustle at
the bar so loud, that the Hon. Gentleman ceased until
the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms cleared the bar, and order
was in some degree restored.] He proceeded to
soy, that he said so because he considered,
with the gentlemen with whom he acted, that
during the time which had necessarily elapsed since
the introduction of the measure, the parties who opposed
the Bill had succeeded in lighting up a flame dangerous
and even discreditable to the country. How anybody
after that could take into his head to write to the Times
to express the grief of the Anti-Maynooth Committee
which had expected that he vvould push on his motion,
but instead of doing so had 'withdrawn it, and thus
prevented the measure being defended by the com
bined votes of " true Protestants," and some of
the adherents of the Whig party. He had
the greatest respect for his Noble Friend
(Lord John Russell) but he feared that, if he
wanted a character, that Noble Lord would say that he
was not among the most obsequious. When he had
differed from that Noble Lord, he had taken his own
line, but on this question his views certainly concurred
with that of the Noble Lord, and with that
of every one of his supporters on his side of the !louse.
When these gentlemen told him that Protestantism was
going to ruin, he could not help thinking how miserable
and small this English Protestantism must be. With
their Universities at Oxford and Cambridge, and with
all the revenues of the richest church in the world, and
a bench of bishops in the House of Lords to watch over its
interests, he could not see how they could justify coming
trembling and whining to that House for assistance upon
the ground that the small sum of 26,0001., was about to
be voted to the Catholics of Ireland. He dismissed this
part of the question at once, and he thought he had got
rid of the charge of anything like bad faith. His prin-
ciples had been too long befote the world to render it
likely that such acharge could be maintained or supported
He had never taken the low tone that religious conces-
sion to Catholicism in Ireland was a matter of grace or
favour. With him it was a matter of right. He had
always considered that as the Catholics were the majo-
rity in the sister country, they had just as
good a right to a Catholic Church establishment
as they had to a Protestant Episcopalian
Establishment in England, or a Presbyterian Church in
Scotland. Their truth was not our truth, their church
was not our church, and they had just as much right to
resist Protestantism, as England would have a
right to resist the introduction of Presbyterianism,
or Scotland to resist the introduction of Episcopacy
into that country ; and it was now time for doing away
with the Established Church in Ireland, which only re-

land's disgrace. He entertained the warmest sympathy
with what the Hon. Member for Newark the other night
called "Indefinite Protestantism," and so he believed it
was called during the last hundred years by such men as
Swift, Burnett, and William 111. His own principles were
sanctioned by the leading dignitaries of the Irish
Church, and were clearly and explicitly laid down in in
important work published by Archbishop Wheatley.
Those were his sentiments ; and though he could not
help honouring the name that first asserted the rights of
mind against the Papal power, he could not less honour
the men who, in spite of revolution and of the change
which had taken place in the aspect of their creed,
still clove to the faith of their ancestors. It had
been told the House by the Honourable Member
for Elgin the other night, and he (Mr. Ward) could not
avoid referring to it, for he considered this but an ad-
journed debate, that the Catholics ought not to be admitted
to the same privileges with the professors of the
Reformed religion, and it was added that the
Duke of Wellington might say then, what the Duke
of Ormond said two hundred years ago, that he had
been acquainted with the Catholics for twenty years,
and that in that period he found them destitute of truth
and unworthy of trust. It was time they dropped their
prejudices, for they made their measures weak, and the
Legislature ridiculous. He said it was time to discon-
tinue this one-sided policy, but they should take care, in
altering their course, that they should at last adopt the
right course—'hat they should not again embark in
what would ultimately pruve to be -a ruinous course.
As to the fact that they had taken a new
course, he had never seen a point on which
such a mass of evidence had been brought to
bear in that House. They had first the Noble
Lord the Member for the City of London ; then they
had the Bight Hon. Baronet the Member for Devonport;
they had the Secretary for the Home Department, and
they had the First Lord of the Treasury. The Right
Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department
had told them that this was *the first of a series of
measures for the amelioration of her Majesty's Catholic
subjects in "island. The First Lord of the Treasury
had told the House that this measure was a Government
one, and by it the Government would stand or fall ; and
the Right Hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, who ought to have been the most cautious,
proved himself on that question the most incautious,
They might have occasion to admire the courage of the
Right Hon. Gentleman, but they could not at &I give en dit
to his sagacity. He (Mr. Ward) would like to see what
they v: ere likely to do. He appealed 'to the House, if
they were not establishing here a progressive prin-
ciple ? and if they took this step at all,
they must be prepared for - all that would fol-
low. The question was simply this. How they
could best settle the necessary and just claims of
Ireland, and how they could best reconcile the people of
S:estland and England to those principles which they
considered necessary and right for that purpose. The
Government were about to do that in a way which he
thought the most likely to prevent any legitimate objec-
tions which might be urged by those parties. The ques-
tion involved some of the most important principles
that Government could propose or Pediment sanction.
It involved a principle of endowment as contradistin-
guished to the voluntary system—it involved the
principle of endowment out of the general funds
of the country. As the particular funds which would
be properly applicable were under the authority of
Government otherwise applied—he would not say mis-
applied. As to those who objected to this measure, on
the voluntary principle, he might safely leave them
in the hands of his Honourable Friend the Member
for the City of London, and the Noble Lord
the Member for Liverpool. They, at least, had nothing
offensive in their views ; they said that religion was
never so healthy, that the power of truth was never so
great as when disconnected with the State. They
alleged nothing offensive to Catholic principles or
Catholic rights. He (Mr. Ward) admitted that
it was a great principle, it was his own prin-
ciple some years ago, when he brought forward
a motion with respect to the Irish Church.
Equality was to be attained in Ireland, but be had no
hope of obtaining that in the way they proposed. Was
he to go on from year to year without any attempt to do
away the anomaly of an endowment in Ireland which
placed the clergy of one-eighth of the population in the
po•session of all the church property ? They provided
another one eighth with a reyium donnal, and the re-
maining six eighths had nothing. That appeared to him
to be a sort of lop-sided liberality ; at the same time, it
would not be denied that the voluntary system had not
yet bet n sufficiently tried ; Ireland had not yet been
prepared for it. In England it might succeed probably
worse, as the professors of religion in England, who
would depend on the voluntary system for their sup
port, would be farther from degrading themselves by
pandering to the passions of their flocks. What did it
do in Ireland ? What did it do in the United States ?
He alw ryes turned with pleasure to the speech made by
his Noble Friend the Member for the City of London,
on the debate for the motion which he (Mr. Ward)
brought forward last year, when he (Lord J. Russell)
dealt a ith the voluntary principle in that highly philsophic
spirit, which was almost peculiar to himself in that House.
Here the Hon. Member read the passage from the
speech to which he had referred, and which was
to the effect that in the United States there were
ministers of various religious sects who were sup-
ported by the voluntary principle ; yet even by