The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-18 00:00:00

Varttanuntarp prorret rots.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—MONDAY.
HUSH GRIEVANCES.—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
Captain BERNAL lamented, as one great cause of the
evils of Ireland, the absence of landlords and the ejection
of tenants. Those subjects, he said, had been character-
ised by Sir R. Peel as belonging to the head of morals
rather than of legislation ; but law was only morality
shaped by parli invent. The brightest drys of England
had been the darkest of Ireland; conciliation had come,
in her case as in that of America, from fear, not favour :
the events of 1777 in America had had their parallel in the
election for Clare. Sir R. Peel had said he would govern
Ireland impartially ; but through whom was he to govern
her ? Through civil officers already committed as the vio-
lent antagonists of the Roman Catholics, and through
bishops declared as opponents of national education. We
had a strong government, no doubt, but it sate with folded
arms, impotent for good, and irresolute for evil. He
would recommend the abolition of the office of Lord Lieu-
tenant, an office useless to all but those numerous young
soldiers (the aides-de-camp) who wished to avoid the dull
routine of regimental duty. He would provide for the
Roman Catholic clergy ; the state could ❑ever conciliate
the people while it slighted their pastors.
Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS reprobated the interference of
America in fomenting Irish movements. He defended
the union, and showed, in detail, the commercial and other
advantages which Ireland had derived from it. He lifted
his voice against all kinds of political agitation; and con-
cluded by moving, rather unexpectedly. that the house
would entertain no Irish question until the agitation now
in progress should have been discontinued.
No seconder was found for this motion, which was re-
ceived by the opposition with sarcastic cheers.
Mr. VILLIERS STUART was of opinion that such an
amendment, if entertained, would have done very little
to put down agitation. He attributed the over popula-
tion and general wretchedness of Ireland less to the mis-
conduct of landlords than to the want of any employment
for the people except upon the land, and the consequent
subdivision of occupations. The great grievance which
was at the bottom of all was that badge of conquest, the
Protestant establishment. The protestant Church re-
venue, as the present incumbents should die off, ought to
be divided among the Roman Catholic clergy, if they
would accept it, which, however, he doubted.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for Ireland cited as au-
thorities against the repeal, the opinions of several of the
late Ministers, expressed in the debate which took place
a few years since upon that subject, that repeal was sepa-
ration. In vindicating the judicial appointments of the
present government, he adverted to those made by their
predecessors. Sir M. O'Loghlin had been appointed by
the latter to the bench, in preference to Mr. Pennefather
and Mr. Blackburne, both by many years his seniors,
and both, to say the least, his equals in talent and busi-
ness. A similar preference had been given to Mr.
Woulfe, who had not a fourth, perhaps not a sixth, of the
business of Mr. Pennefather, Mr. Blackburne, or Mr.
Lefroy. So in the case of Judge Ball, so in the case of
Judge Richards. Now none of these were blameable ap-
pointments, but they were all appointments of partisans.
Lord Howicx appealed to the speeches of Ministers
for admissions of the existing evils, of which, however,
those speeches suggested no remedy. And yet no man
out of office had spoken without declaring the opinion
that some efficient remedy was requisite. The present
meetings in Ireland, and the agitation connected with
them, were subjects of the deepest alarm ; not because
the meetings themselves were immediately mischievous,
but because they excited and diffused bad feeling among a
whole people. You must conquer their affections if you
would have Ireland secure. He argued that repeal meant
separation, that separation meant war, and that war be-
fore separation was better than after it. Something was
necessary, and the government, who ought to be the lead-
ers, shrank from proposing it ; he would, therefore. sub
mit the results of his own reflection. The causes of evil
in Ireland were chiefly two—the distress of the people as
connected with the occupation of land; and the circum-
stances arising from the relative positions of the Protes-
tants and Catholics. The distress was not only severe but
habitu,l, and it naturally disposed the sufferers to politi-
cal movement. The capabilities of the country, and the
qualaies of the people, were such as ought to produce
prosperity, and why was it not obtained? British capital
was not wanting tor any enterprise that promised a return;
but the reason why that capital was not converted to the
benefit of Ireland was, the want of security. The tenant
was deterred from improvement by the uncertainty of
his holding ; and that uncertainty led to agrarian outrage.
Some arrangements for valuations between landlord and
tenant might be introduced by law ; but, moreover, some
means ought to be provided for employing industrious
persons in other labour than that of the land The best
thing that ministers could now do would be to consent to
a resolution for taking into consideration the whole state
of Ireland ; that as soon as the prorogation should take
place they should digest and mature the measures neces-
sary for that country ; and, that, early in the winter,
Parliament should be re-assembled for the purpose of
deliberating upon them.
Mr. GALLY KNIGHT doubted whether, in the state in
which the late ministers had left the finances of the
country, the Chancellor of the Exchequer could find it
possible to produce the money for the purposes proposed
by the noble lord. He was quite sure that the English
people would never consent to the demolition of the Pro-
testant Church in Ireland, and that any such attempt not
only would cost a minister his place, but, if persisted in,
would cost a monarch his crown. But he admitted that
a provision ought to be made for the Roman Catholic
clergy.

Cord JOCELYN desired to have it remembered, that
the Protestant religion, though it was the faith but of the
minority in Ireland, was the faith of the majority in that
aggregate empire of which Ireland was a part. The state
of Ireland, agrarian and general, had been improving
when the present disturbance began: and it was painful
to see those benefits arrested in their progress by such a
cause.
The debate was then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-TUESDAY,

The adjournei debate on the motion of Mr. W. S
O'BRIEN was resumed by

Mr. M. J. O'CONNELL, who commented on the policy
pursued towards Ireland, and on the present position of
the conservatives with respect to that country.
After the House had been addressed by Mr. Smythe,
Mr. Havves, Mr. Colquhoun, Mr. S. Crawford, Mr.
Bateson, Mr. Ross, Mr. Milnes, and Mr. Roebuck,
Sir R. PEEL said he did not believe that the hon. gen-
tleman who had opened the debate had any idea of enter-
ing into a solemn inquiry into the state of Ireland, but
that his real object was, by carrying his motion, to de-
clare that the house had no confidence in the present mi-
nistry. It was quite impossible that Ireland could benefit
by the repeal of the union in a pecuniary point of view,
considering the establishments which she must then of
necessity maintain. At present Ireland paid no assessed
taxes, and in a recent crisis had escaped the property tax,
to which the rest of the kingdom was subjected. The
expense of the Post-office was also borne on this side of
the water, and he was surprised under such circumstances
that it could be supposed that Ireland was not benefitted
in a pecuniary point of view by the union. With respect
to the patronage of the Irish church, he read a letter to
the Lord-Lieutenant, leaving him et liberty to dispose of
church preferment in that country according to the result
of his inquiries, as to the professional merits of the parties,
and intimating that it was necessary for the benefit of the
Irish church that this principle should be acted upon.and 4
that he was willing to foregoe all parliamentary influence
rather than act upon any other principle. This letter
was written in 1841, at a time when he little thought he
should be ever called upon to read it in that house in self
defence. Upon the subject of education- the right hon.
baronet defended the course pursued by the government,
and in reference to the distribution of government ap-
pointments he could assure the house that he never asked
a man's country or religion when considering his fitness
for office, in proof of which he referred to the appoint-
ment of the commissioners of metropolitan police, both
of whom were Irishmen. In the same way when he
selected three sculptors to erect statues in Greenwich
Hospital to three of our naval heroes, two out of the three
were Irishmen, a fact he was not aware of until afterwards,
when he saw an attack made upon him in a public journal
for extending undue favour to the people of Ireland. These
were distinctions which should not be entertained, and he
hoped they would never be revived. With respect to the
construction of railways, he had some doubt of the pro-
priety of taxing one part of the country for the benefit
of the other, unless there was a certainty that the
railway would become profitable, for otherwise it would
only give a stimulus for the moment followed by a
greater state of depression than that which it was
intended to remedy. In reply to an observation of Lord
Howick's, he said that the Roman Catholics now en-
joyed equal civil rights as the other subjects of the crown,
and that the oaths were so altered that the offensive por-
tions relating to transubstantiation were abolished. With
respect to the franchise, he would remind the house that
they had come into power as was said with a large ma-
jority, but that majority had not been applied to the pass-
ing of a registration bill or to any other measure which
could be said to be unjust to Ireland. He was called upon
by the honourable member for Bath to give a pledge to
abolish the Established Church of Ireland, and if he be-
lieved that public necessity required it he would not hesi-
tate to recommend that the law respecting that Church
should be modified, but he believed nothing of that sort,
and he was quite prepared to refuse any such pledge, even
if his refusal should lead to his loss of power. If they
proposed to make the Catholic and Protestant religion
equal in every respect they should not only take seven-
eighths of the ecclesiastical revenues, but they must give
up several of the edifices of the Established Church. (Se-
veral members on the opposition side—" Certainly.")
But that was not all, for in order to have perfect equality
they must either have Catholic bishops in the House of
Lords or else exclude from thence the bishops of the Es-
tablishment. Thus they would perceive that the measure
suggested by several hon. members was much more exten-
sive than they imagined. When Catholic emancipation
was conceded, it was said that the concession would
hen the position of the Established Church, and
1 the Catholics would not forget the pledges to
ninent men who advocated their
act upon those pledges,

by the

a any portion
erefore think

DI Ireland,

believe(

atries, a

on, to the full

it of their ability,

but it was sufficient to adopt the necessary measures of
precaution until they found moderation unavailing. The
right hon. baronet sat down amidst very general cheer-
ing. _ _ _

Lord J. RUSSELL said he had heard the speech of Sir
R. Peel with dissatisfaction, although he thought he was
right in not allowing himself to be hurried into coercive
measures by the advice of irresponsible parties. He in-
sisted upon it that the people of Ireland had not the same
rights as the people of England, and he thought Sir J.
Graham and Sir R. Peel had quibbled with the question
as far as it related to the franchise. The right hon.
baronet had taken credit to himself for not using his ma-
jority in order to carry Lord Stanley's Registration Bill,
and he used the remarkable words that he had not made
use of it to perpetrate injustice to Ireland, by which ex-
pressions he affirmed that the bill was an act of injustice,
and implied that it had been only mooted for party
purposes while the late Government was in office. He
was of opinion that they ought not to abolish the Esta-
blished Church of Ireland, but he would say that they
ought to raise the Catholic bishops and clergy to a footing
of equality, and that principle he should be prepared to
follow out to all its con sequences. He knew that there
would be difficulty in carrying such an arrangement into
effect, for the catholic clergy were opposed to connection
with the state.

Mr. BLEWITT moved the adjournment of the debate.—
The motion was agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-WEDNESDAY

The debate on the alleged Irish grievances was resumed
by Mr. Sergeant MURPHY, and after Lord BERNARD,
Sir H. W. BARROW and two or three other members had
spoken,

Lord PALMERSTON said, what were the views of go-
vernment he defied any man to infer from their speeches.
They were no doubt distracted and paralysed by contrary
impulses—not only from their friends out of doors, but
even in the cabinet itself. He had said a little while ago,
that if ministers should resign their places, the country
would call upon them to return; but he had lately seen
ground to change that opinion, and he felt bound as a
gentleman and a man honour to say so, that he might not
mislead them into a resignation. He did not think that
repeal was a question which ministers would have to con-
sider. he rather thought that repeal was a cry conventionally
adopted by the people to express their grievances. The
only point upon which ministers had held out the chance
of a remedy was the law of landlord and tenant; and
most happy should he be to co-operate with them on such
a subject. On the greatest evil of all, the relative position
of the Protestants and Roman Catholics, not the slightest
alleviation was intimated. The present amount of esta-
blishment was capable of being considerably reduced ; and
as Lord Stanley had been the author of the Church
Temporalities Bill, there could be no objection by him,
or his colleague, Sir J. Graham, to the principle of re-
duction. In point of justice, perhaps, the Catholics could
not complain of the Protestant establishment ; but, con-
sidering the state of their own church, could you expect
that they would not? He would say, therefore, suspend
those livings in which there is no duty to be performed.
But if you would not abate the Protestant church, put
that of the Catholics upon a level with it, authorize the
possession of glebe-houses, by voluntary gift, perhaps with
some aid from the state. The amount of the establish-
ment at Nlaynooth, too, was far below its proper line.
Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Prussia—each made provision
from the funds of the state for more than one denomina-
tion of clergy. He condemned the scanty allotment of
the parliamentary, and the too high amount of the mu-
nicipal, franchise. Under ail these ditticuties, here was
a government unprepared with any remedy. They were
content, in office, as out of it, to obstruct. He hoped,
at all events, that nothing would be said from the treasury
benches to strike the Irish people with despair, and that
before another session, measures would be matured for
satisfying the just expectations of that nation.
Lord STANLEY declined to adopt the suggestions of
Mr. Muntz and Mr. Ferrand, who had required the
government, not only to make declarations respecting
Ireland, but to point out remedies for all the evils in all
the British dominions. He had read this motion as
charging the government with insensibility to the grie-
vances of Ireland, and with indisposition to do her justice;
but the speech which had introduced it was a speech
upon the general state of Ireland, and against past, as
well as present, administrations; so that the precise drift
of the motion itself was not now very easy to be defined.
Some gentlemen called upon the government to exercise
the energy of Strafford, others forbade them to take any
strong measure at all. The government had been charged
with intending nothing on the subject of parliamentary
franchise ; whereas, at an earlier period of this very ses-
sion, they had announced their intention to enlarge that
franchise, upon the basis of the new valuation contem-
plated in the Irish Poor Law Amendment Bill; but the
working of that valuation must be seen before such en-
largement of franchise could be prudently enacted.
Then, on the subject of the Irish Church, what was
desired? No five of the members opposite could agree' •
but some had said boldly, " Abolish the intrusive church
of the minority ;" and Lord Palmerston, had asked how
Lord Stanley could object to the principle of a farther
reduction in its revenues? Why, it was the very point
upon which he bad resigned his seat in the whig cabinet.
He admitted that a high-minded man would abandon
office rather than sacrifice important principles ; but he did
not think it would become such a man to abandon his office
and his principle together. What the prospoal of equal-
izing the two religions meant, he did not understand. Did
it mean an equal, or did it mean a proporlirnale division
of the Protestant revenues between the Protestant and
Catholic clergy ? And to what result would your equa-
lity lead ? Why, to place in the House of Lords a Roman
Catholic prelacy, not nominated by the Crown of England
but by the Court of Rome; for Mr. Moore O'Ferrall
himself had declared in this debate that the Roman Cath
olic clergy would not accept a stipend from the nation, on
the terms of permitting any interference with their civil
state. The law of landlord and tenant was a difficult
subject; and he acknowledged that if the Irish landlords,
as a class, dealt with their tenants otherwise than the
landlords of England, a case was made out for the inter-
ference of the Legislature. To a Committee, however,
of mere inquiry into the law of landlord and tenant, the
Goverment would have made no objection. He should
be sorry to have it thought that either this or former gov-
ernments had neglected the welfare of Ireland. A com-
mittee, of which Mr. Spring Rice was chairman, had
recommended nineteen different measures ; eighteen of
them had since been actually passed into law ; and if the
house would continue its confidence he would not despair
that, by forbearance from extreme measures, and a sted-
fast perseverance in a careful and vigilant policy, the
government would be able to conduct the country through
its dangers; but if, through the course taken by certain
gentlemen who sate on his own side of the house, and who
had some of them hinted, and some of them avowed,
their want of confidence, the government were to be addi-
tionally embarrassed and impeded, the question of confi-
dence or no confidence could not too soon be brought to
issue, in order that the Ministers, if distrusted by parlia-
ment, might at once make way for others more fit to direct
the councils of the country.
Mr. S. O'BRIEN having replied,
The house divided.
For the Committee ...... 164
Against it
Majority against it..
The house afterwards adjourned at half-past two o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.---TIIURSDAY.

- -
The Arms (Ireland) Bill again became the subject of
discussion, on the motion for resuming the committee,
and after a long speech from Lord CLEMENTS,
Mr. WALLACE moved that the committee should be
postponed for six months.

Mr. S. CRAWFORD seconded the motion, and said that,
from the moment his arms should be branded, he would
become a repealer until the Arms Act should be repealed.
In order to avoid being placed in that position, he should
avail himself of the forms of the house, in every possible
way, to oppose the passing of the act.
Mr. V. STUART opposed the amendment of Mr. Wal-
lace, though he thought it would be his duty to vote
against the bill altogether on the third reading.
The house then divided, and the amendment of Mr.
Wallace was defeated by a majority of 104 to 27.

The house soon after resolved itself into committee,
and the remainder of the evening was occupied in the dis-
cussion of the various clauses.