The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-25 00:00:00

tion of the Right Hon. Gentleman himself was it not most
hurtful to that great empire, of which so large a portion was
confided to his care? was it not most hurtful to the dignity of
that House, that upon a great question, in which so many in-
terests were involved, a Minister of the Crown was placed in a
situation to held such language and to make such amendments ?
A few short months might bring the Right Hon. Baronet
to the distressing alternative of asserting to the
House that " I was wrong before, and I am
not right now."—( Cheers.) The Right Honourable
Baronet had needlessly and wantonly renewed difficulties
which were passing away. If they have given to the shadows
form and substance, it is not our faults. You (said the Noble
Lord) fought with me inch by inch when lasked of you to
give this much of concession to the Irish people. Do as you
will, you cannot govern the people of Ireland as heretofore.
For my part, I shall support the amendment.—(Cheers.)
Mr. HAMILTON opposed the resolution. A reference
had been made to the Blue-book, and he had also made it his
business to refer to that Blue-book, and he found that the re-
presentations which had been made of the state of the Irish
Church were entirely incorrect. He found, by that report,
that there were eighty-two benefices in Ireland. lie was
aware that a distinction was drawn between parishes and
benefices—( Hear, hear)—but he found that a great difference
existed between the representations of the Roman Catholic
party and those who were opposed to them. The Hon. Gen-
tleman then went into a series of statements respecting the
number and the value of the benefices in the hands of the Pro-
' testant Irish clergy, in order to show that the means at present
derived from the benefices and from the parishes possessed by the
Protestant clergy were only moderate remunerations for the
duties they had to perform. He believed that the propagation
of Christian truth was not to be effected by merely human
means, and he thought that the success of the Irish Established
Church was not to be charged upon it as a deficiency. They
had no means for rendering the Irish Church Establishment
available for its purpose, and if they considered that this Es-
tablishment was to be answerable for its effects, he would ask
what had been the effects of the Educational Commission ? It
was well known that the Educational Commission had failed in
effecting all that it desired, and he thought that the promotion
of Christianity was not to be effected by any merely human
means. They had heard a great deal of restitution during
that debate.—(Hear, hear.) But what was the case ? At
the time the Irish Church obtained those endowments, it was
not in connexion with the Church of Rome. Until that con-
nexion had been formed, there had been no question as to the
possession or the use of the revenues which were attached to
the Church. In the time of Henry IL, this connexion had
been formed, and had continued for three centuries, but at the
Reformation this connexion had been broken, and it was not
until all hope had been gone and the allegiance of the popu-
lation of Ireland was lost to Rome that the Pope had attempted,
to establish any other Church. Much had been
said of the injury offered to the Roman Catholics of Ireland,
but he thought that something should be made of the insult
offered to the feelings of the Protestant inhabitants of Ireland.
The Protestants had always been the main dependence—he
might call them the garrison of the Government in Ireland.—
( Ironical cheers.) In 1835, at the request of the Minister of the
day, the Right Hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government,
the Protestants of Ireland had readily and in a moment dis-
solved a confederacy which was dear to them from many recol-
lections, and in which their prejudices had been interwoven.
He did not wish to speak harshly of the Members of her Ma-
jesty's Government, but he thought it was his duty to warn
them of trifling with the feelings of their Irish fellow Protestants.
They would, in such a case, find that Protestants would
league themselves with repealers—(llear, hear)—or, what
would be as had, they would see party conflicts—one class
naturally exulting in the triumph of their own Church and
their own party, and the other bitterly regretting all conces-
sions made to the rival party, and determined, as far as they
cculd, to thwart any such intentions on the part of the Go-
vernment.—(Cheers.) These would be the fruits of this
motion of the Hon. Member for Sheffield, if it were carried
—a measure, the result of which would be a subversion of all
good feeling, and the substitute of the opposite; exultation on
the one hand on account of these concessions being opposed to
the antagonist feeling ; on the other side, of deep and fruitless
regret and poignant disappointment.—( Cheers. )
Mr. B. OSBORNE expressed his sorrow that ho had not
had an opportunity at an earlier period of addressing the
House on that subject. He had, however, listened with great
attention to the debate, and he could not avoid expressing a
doubt that it would exhibit an unsatisfactory spectacle to the
admirers of academic rule and of academic education, for they
would find the Members who represented the Universities,
with but one exception, to a man disinclined to grant this con-
cession to Ireland, and disposed to battle—nay, to die—in the
breech ere the measure should be carried.—(Hear, hear.) The
Hon. Gentleman who had last spoken. and who was the re-
presentative of a decreasing party in Ireland—he meant the
Orange party—had threatened the Right lion. Baronet with
the enmity of his party—if he persevered in his intentions he had
threatened to amalgamate with the repeaters.
Mr. HAMILTON explained.
Mr. OSBORNE would accept the explanation as it was
given, but when the Hon. Member lauded the patriotism and
loyalty of the Protestants, and referred them to the times of
Archbishop Hunter, he (Mr. Osborne) would carry him to a
' still earlier period. He would take him to that period in the
history of Ireland when Protestants were the abettors of rebel-
lion, when Wolfe Tone and other Protestants were the leaders
of rebellion, and, therefore, he said, away with the cry of Pro-
testant integrity and Protestant loyalty. The Roman Catholic
subjects of Ireland, he would aver, were as loyal as the
most Protestant Members in that House.—( Cheers. ) If
the Honourable Member had but made himself acquainted
with the principles inculcated at the College of Maynooth, he
would not have joined in raising the senseless cry which had
been heard against that Catholic seminary. He (Mr. Osborne)
was much struck with the speech of the Right lion. Baronet at
the head of her Majesty's Government on the preceding even-
ing. The Bight Hon. Baronet appeared, on thst occasion,
to be more engaged in the task of defending his own consistency
than the character of the Irish Church, and, with his usual
adroitness, he, in the after-part of his speech, referred to
O'Connell and to the Oregon territory—to everything, in fact,
but the real question before the House, which he threw over-
board altogether.—( Hear, hear.) lie held in his hand a
parer containing the recorded opinions of throe of the
Right llonourable Baronet's friends—men of great talent and
filling a high position—and the first he should refer to
w, old be Lord Brougham.--( Laughter. ) fie was now sup-
posed to be of the same party with the Right Hon. Baronet.—
( Continued laughter.) That Noble Lord said, in speaking of
the Establishment in Ireland, " God forbid that the Church
should hare tire same power over its property that individuals
ad over theirs," and he argued that the Church revenues
might be legally applied to the purposes of education as the
State might think fit. The Ron. Gentleman had alluded to
the subject of compact, as known and acted on at the time of
the Union. What was the Act of Union? It was this. The
representatives of a small minority of the Irish people, in
order that their Church should be perpetuated, and in conse-
quence of certain pecuniary reasons, sold the liberties of
the Irish nation and the Irish Church. (Loud
cheers.) He asked if the Government were to act
upon precedent, why that which was thought good for Caoada
should not be good fur Ireland also ?—( Cheers. ) Why should
not
the sameh principle be applied in both countries.—( Hear,
hear.) e
Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home
Department seemed, in his speech of last night, to have rather
misrepresented the opinions entertained by Hon. Members on
that side of the II )use • He seemed to think that they desired
the entire subverSion of the Irish Church. He would answer
for hiinself, and he knew that he could answer for many others,
that they desired no such thing. But they could wish that
that Church had tried to fulfil the expectations on which it
had been originally founded. He could inform the House that
in Ireland there were 218 parishes which contained not one
Protestant.—( Hear.) 723 parishes had not one Church, and
consequently no service at alt.—(Heer, hear.) He could not
in Ii eland.—(Cheers.)
sent withthe usefulness of the Established Church
him by referring to what he called the The lion. Member had endeavoured
to r 3
then help lamenting the ignorance exhibited by lion.
l ecaa :br aeynr stdh._ree s
ipcecocubti
glorious period of the reformation. Why, the reformation bad
never taken place in Ireland.—(Cheers.) There had been,
indeed, a revolution at the time, but no change had taken
place in the opinions of the people. The Government and the
monarch of that day wanted to seize the revenues of the Irish
Church, and this reformation afforded a good colour for that
purpose.—( Hear, hear.) !Jew was that Reformation carried
out ? In James the First's time the Bibles were
ordered to be translated into Irish, and an anecdote
was
English nobles' and Irish ministers • but in
the time of succeeding monarchs, they had Irish nobles and
Elizabeth preservedt h:y Karlof a person comelaining, that in the reign of
English ministers•—(Laughter). He was prepared to men-
tion, on the authority of the very work quoted by the Right
lion. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland, that there was DO
similarity between the Irish and the English Churches. The
English Church held its temporalities with the sanction of the
great body of the English people. That was not the case with
the Irish Church. There existed also a vast difference between
the doctrines of the churches. The work observed that the
religion of the Irish Church was a species of Puritanism
rather than Protestantism. The Church preached a sour
morality quite opposed to the liberal tenets of English
Divines. What was the language of some of the ministers of
the Protestant Church in Ireland ? The Right Rev. Prelate
said that the penal laws were for the benefit of the
Papists.—(Hear, hear.) What was their conduct towards
the Right Hon. Baronet when he brought in his educational
measures? Their language was only worthy of Exeter Hall,
and their exclusive University of Dublin. He would ask the
House if it had ever produced one great man, or one eminent
writer ?—( Hear, hear, and cheers.) Perhaps some name
might be given them by the Noble Lord the
Member for Bandon—souse little minister eminent
in his little sphere, but one name worthy of note had never yet
emanated from the Dublin University. He held in his hand a
Government pamphlet, issued from the Government office in
Dublin, and entitled " Probate of Wills, and he would take
the liberty of reading the whole of it to the House, as it was
not very long, to show the amount of Church property left by
some of the Church dignitaries within the limited period of
forty or fifty years. He found,
among other facts stated in
it, that the Lord Bishop of Cork left at his decease property to
the amount of 5,000
▪ 60,0000
00
The Bishop of Limerick... ..................
100,050
The Bishop of Killaloe .................
. 50,
The Bishop of Dro;ore .....................
The Archbishop of Dublin ▪ 150,( 00
...............
The MAHE of Baehr ............ 250,000
The Bishop of Tuam

_ne Bishop of .aphoe ...........
The Archbishop of Armagh .... ......... ••• 300,000
The Bishop of Clogher ........................ 350"°
The Bishop of Cashel .......................... 450,000

In all an amount of .. . .............
And all this amount, be its remembered, collected in the
space of forty or fifty yeaars.—(Cries of .cHear, hear.")
They had heard various allusions to their not wishing to take the
property from the Protestant Church. He did not believe
that they wished to take it, nor was it his wish that it should
be stone, but he wished that'
that Church should be placed on
a better footing. Dr. Doyle, in an examination: before the
House of Lords, stated that he had a greater respect for the
Established Church than any other Church which differed
from the See of Rome, but that he thought that the property
was i
as prejudicial to the Established Church as it was to the
Irish people. He remembered the days when a Viceroy
was put in Coventry because he agreed in some matters
with Mr. O'Connell; and now they were sending messages
of peace to Ireland, and dragging at the chariot-wheels of a
convicted conspirator.—(Cheers.) He thought that there
were very few Honourable Gentlemen at that or the other side
of the House who would be inclined to agree with measures
extracted under such conditions. (Hear, hear.) On
a late occasion, when he (Mr. Osborne) had
the honour of addressing the House, it was his
intention to have voted against the Hon. Gentleman s proposi-
tion, riot because he objected to the grant, but he objected
that it should be taken out of the consolidated fund, inasmuch
as the people of this country objected to their money being ap-
plied to the objects of the Roman Catholic Church. He was
very much shaken in that intention when he heard the speech
of the Hon. Member for Kent, who dealt out damnation to all
his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen.—(Laughter.) That
was what first altered his opinion.] It was succeeded by the
Hon. Member for Elgin, who claimed the hardihood of a sort
of Birmingham Pope.—(Laughter)—instead of a Member of
the Sedate, and, proiiounced the religion of three-fourths of
the population of Europe' to be an awful delusion. He could
not countenance such a gross inult to the Roman Catholic re-
ligion. He would tell the Han. Gentleman that it was better to be
insane in his charity than ‘-ational in his malice. He would
refer him to: what was saiti' by Burke, that he that dis-
sented altogether from the Christian religion was most Pro-
etant. Ile would put it to an,v dispassionate Alember of the