The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-04-03 00:00:00

Imperial Varlianunt.

HOUSE OF LORDS, MONDAY.
The witness indemnity bill was brought up from the lower
house by Mr. Ord, and was subsequently read a first time.
The first report of the commissioners of municipal inquiry,
and also the first report of the ecclesiastical commissioners, ap-
pointed to impure into the state of the e'stablished church-in
Ireland, were laid upon the table.
EDMUND PINE.
Lord BROUCH AM wished to put a question to the noble duke
(Wellington), the object of which was to have explained a
statement which had been in circulation, and out of which some
misunderstanding had arisen. It was stated in the papers that
a man had lately been hung in Ireland under the name of
Savage, whose real name was Pine, and who was innocent of
the crime for which he suffered. The mistake was a lamentable
one; but all human tribunals were more or less liable to err.
Still, however, no branch of government required to be more
carefully attended to or more tree from suspicion than the ad-
ministration of the criminal law, and he hoped it would not turn
out that a mistake had occurred through any erroneous verdict.
The Duke of Witt.t.tisoron believed that such would not be
found to be the case.
Lord PLursxwr said that the mistake arose out of the question
of identity, and expressed his hope that such mistakes were not
of ordinary occurience.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE presented a petition from Lime-
rick against tithes.
The Earl of BOSEBERY presented two petitions, numerously
signed, one from the dissenters of Stromuess, and the other from
the dissenters of York, praying for a reform of the church esta-
blishment in Ireland, and tor a correction of abuses in church
endowments throughout the empire.
The Earl of CARLISLE presented a petition from Halifax
against the factory bill.
Lord BROUGH A et presented a petition from Selwood, in Sotner-
setshire, numerously signed by the protestant dissenters of the
independent persuasion, and others, praying relief from the griev-
ances which pressed upon them,
.particularly as regarded mar-
riage, church rates, burial, exclusion from the Universities, and
the want of an effective registration.
OATHS ABOLITION BILL.
The Marquis of CAM DEN was obliged by the courtesy of the
noble duke (Richmond) in consenting to postpone at his request
the third reading of the oaths abolition bill. He had since com-
municated with the Cambridge University upon the subject, and
the result of that communication was that neither the heads of
the University nor himself were inclined to object to the mea-
sure, but on the contrary would endeavour to meet its.: far as
they thought they could.
be Duke of RionmorrD then rose to move the third reading,
when .
Lord l3ttolicnam requested that it might be allowed to stand
over until "Thursday. There were? some difficulties in the way
of the bill 'which,it would be desirable to obviate, and therefore
it was that he requested the delay. The objections were not to
the principle of the bill, but of a technical nature, with one of
which, and that an important one, the noble duke was himself
acquainted.
The Duke of RICHMOND consented to the postponement, and
felt grateful to the noble lord for having looked into his bill, and
' for proferring his services to remedy its defects.—Adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, MONDAY.
The. gallery
_of the house, in consequence of the call, was not
opened until six o'clock.

THE IRISH CHURCH.
The order of the day for going into a committee of supply
having been read,
Lord JOHN RUSSELL proceeded to address the house. The
motion he was about to submit referred to the state of the esta-
blished church in Ireland, but before he entered on that subject
he would refer to Mr. O'Connell's motion last year for a select
committee to inquire and report on the means by which the
union of Great Britain with Ireland had been effected. This
motion had been met by a counter resolution, and an address
to his Majesty which, in conclusion, contained the following
worils:--" We humbly beg leave to assure your Majesty that
we shall persevere in applying our best attention to the removal
of all just causes of complaint, and to the promotion of all well-
considered measures of improvement." 'fo this address the
other house of parliament had agreed ; it was presented to his
Majesty, whd in his most gracious answer, said "That his Ma-
jesty would at all times be anxious to afford his best assistance
in removing all just causes of complaint, and in sanctioning all
well-considered measures of improvement." This he (Lord
John) considered a solemn contract entered into by the united
voice of the legislature with the people of Ireland, and he now
came before them that day to entreat them to fulfil their part
of the condition by the removal of the just grievances of the
people of Ireland. It was no answer to his motion to say that
the stability of the Irish church would be shaken by its suc-
cess, founded on distant apprehensions of danger; they must
either redress the wrongs of Ireland or repeal the union.
(Hear.) With respect to the state of Ireland, every statesman
who had had to do with it had failed ,• with respect to the phy-
sical condition of the people of Ireland, and the poverty which
weighed them down, the present was not the proper time for
their consideration ; but with respect to their moral condition,
and how far the established church bore upon it, he thought the
present a fit opportunity for discussing that question. There
was a tendency in the Irish-character to violence and outrage,
which arose from an opinion that the law by which they were
governed was not fairly administered; hence these outrages
were sometimes committed on an unoffending clergyman, some-
times on a Roman Catholic. The periods most distinguished
in our annals were marked with dissensions and misery in Ire-
land. In the time of Edward I. the Irish asked to have the
benefit of English subjects conferred upon them; in that of
Elizabeth an unhappy distinction between the English and 'the
people of Ireland arose which changed the faith of the clergy
though not of the people. In the course of the last century and the
beginning of the present concessions had been made, the power
of legislation, the elective franchise, and the emancipation, but
all these boons had been conferred to avoid a civil war, and it
was therefore not surprising that concessions thus made should
not have reconciled the people of Ireland to the authority of the
law, or that they should entertain an opinion that what force
had given them before, force might give them now. He now
wished to legislate in a better spirit. In considering the state
of the Irish elturch, he was obliged to ask what was its utility
and object? Its defence in this country was unanswerable, it
tended to preserve order, and was agreeable to the majority of
the people; but in Ireland the argument did not apply. His
lordship then referred to the opinions of Dr. Paley and the pre-
sent Bishop of Lcuadon, as to the authority and usefulness of an
endowed and established church. The noble lord proceeded to
make an estimate of annual value of the property of the Irish
church, which he said amounted to little less than £BOO,OOO. The
question, therefore, was whether this large sum had really served
to advance the religious instruction of the people for whose be-
nefit it was intended? Whether with the increase of that pro-
perty there had been a corresponding increase in the number of
conversions to the protestant religion ? Not long since many
of the Irish clergy considered it an advantage to have no pro-
testants in their benefices, and that they were only members of
a great political body. He believed that the whole protestant
population in Ireland did not exceed 750,000, of whom 400,000
were within the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. His lord-
ship then read returns from ten dioceses, showing the relative
numbers of members of the established church to the Roman
catholies, and also to some parochial returns showing the value
of the benefices and the number of protestants and catholics in
each of them, to show that the income of £BOO,OOO was given to
a very small number of the people, and that the great bulk of
them derived uo benefit whatever from the church. There was
a time when the English church might have attained a better
footing in Ireland, but now it could not be hoped for, attached
as the people of that country were to their ancient faith; that
by merely building churches and glebe houses, and preaching
every Sunday, that any real advances could be made in their
conversion. His lordship then adverted to the resistance
offered to the payment of tithes at Rathcormac and other places.
Looking at such scenes as these he would ask, whether the house
could consider that, as a means of spiritualinstruction, the funds
of the church should be used for forcing and maintaining its
doctrines, and for no other purpose whatever ? What he proposed
to do in this case was that there should be instituted such a reform
of the church of Ireland as should enable the house to adapt the
establishment fur the spiritual instruction of those who belonged
to the church, and that there should be no unnecessary addi-
tions. If this principle were adopted it must greatly reduce the
church establishment of Ireland; he proposed, therefore, that
the house should undertake this object, and that it should apply
whatever might be received after that reduction to sonie object
by which the moral and religious improvement. of the people
of Ireland might be advanced, by which their interests ought be
considered, and by which they might be led to believe that the
fundi which were raised nominally for their benefit were really
used for and adapted to their wants. It was with this view,
then, he meant to propose the resolution of which he had given
notice, which was to this effect, " that the house do resolve it-
self into a committee of the whole house, in order to consider
the present state of the church establishment in Ireland, with
the view of applying any surplus of its revenue not required for
the general purposes of that church, to the general, moral, and
religious instruction of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland, with-
out reference to their religious distinctions." In proposing
this he followed the course taken by the hon. member for Mid-
dlesex in 1828 with respect to the Roman Catholic claimi. In
that case the house was moved to resolve itself into a committee,
and the motion was carried by a majority of six. It was moved
and carried that it should be scut to the House of Lords; that
houee, after a conference, fixed a day for its discussion, and
upon the discussion the resolution was lost. Should the house
resolvgitselliato a committee upon his motion, and should the
resolution be carried in the committee, then he would move- are
addreis to the crown embodying that resolution, with a humble
entreaty to his Majesty that he would be pleased to enable the
house to carry it into effect. This he thought the necessary
course to be taken. The measures necessary might be origin-
ated by a message from the crown. Lord John then referred
to the address of Sir Robert Peel to the electors of l'amworth ;
that lie was not adverse to "an improved distribUtion of the
revenues of the church," calculated to extend its influence.
Upon the opinion of the right hon. baronet thus broadly stated,
the house should come to some decision and either adopt or re-
ject the principle. If.the house was determined to confine the
revenues of the church to the teaching the doctrines of the esta-
blished church, that should be declared; but if it was not of that
opinion then it certainly came to be of no use that the house
should be passing through its different stages a bill for the ap-
plication of tithes, while on this question it was not known whe-
ther ministers and the House of Commons were agreed or were
at variance. This he thought sufficient to set aside the argu-
ment that might be drawn from the fact that the report of the
Irish church commissioners had not been laid before them.
With respect to the purposes to which I.e would apply the sur-
plus revenues of the Irish church, the use he proposed was
general education according to the system adopted by the na-
tional board in Ireland; he eonsidered that in the present state
of Ireland no measure would tend so much to promote harmony
as the expenditure. of very large funds for that purpose. From
the earliest times a would be found that parliament had wished
to improve the condition of Ireland by the means of education.
That was the object of the 12th Elizabeth, when diocesan
schools were introduced. (Loud cheers, and cries of " Hear.")
But after a time it became a great object to introduce a
system of education which would- not interfere with the faith
oT any. Having stated his general object, he had to meet some
objections which had been urged against such a proposition as
that which he called upon the house to affirm. The first
was the principle that the property of the church ought
noe to be diverted to any but strictly ecclesiastical purposes.
Ile should' not enter upon the question whether church pro-
perty should be considered as private, and therefore, inaliena-
ble property, or whether it was the property of the state, and
therefore, at the disposal of the hhoaudses.aidla,
pineohpilse‘o‘ Rf enegc--
"i'dentified the state of the church
"
flwai ntn
with the
ot
hne have the
massincorporated Freontcph
reart: 1 landr
operty, of which the state is not the
proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only
and the regulator." Now, he did not hold the opinion that
this was private property and that they could no more interfere
with the revenues of a 'bishop than the estate of an earl. But
such was net•tbe doctrine maintained by the right hon. gentle-
man opposite: TAtey hold that the state might take from one
bishop and give toy rector or a curate. Did that, then, bear
any resemblance to iv ate property ? Lord Stanley's bill re-
duced the Irish bish*ics. The noble lord after some general
reasonings to shew thae the parliament having already treated
the property' of the churah as essentially public, and that the stir-
plus could not be so adrintageously applied as to the purposes