The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-06-18 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-WEDNESDAY.

The adjourned debate on the Church Temporalities of
Ireland was resumed. After one or two members had
spoken,
Sir J. GRAHAM remarked that the thin attendance
and the apathy of the few members who did attend were
a ju.tifiration of the praise given to the mover as a man
who manifestly outstrieped the spirit of the age. The
subject of the Roman Catholic oath was irrelevant to this
debate; and he would only observe upon that oath, 'that
he considered its construction to be matter for each mem-
ber's individual conscience. With respect to the imme-
diate matter of discussion—the Irish church, the govern-
ment had endeavoured to purify it, but, in its purified
state, were resolved to uphold it with their utmost
strength. It was asked, would you, if there was no Irish
Protestant church in existence, create now such a church
as this? That question was not an applicable one in the
case of a nation's ancient institutions. He would not say
that the union precluded all changes in the temporalities
of the church; but his opinion was, that such changes
should be made, not with a view to weaken, but to con-
firm the establishment. On this ground it was that he
had been a party to the removal of sinecures and other
abuses ; but he would riot be a party to reductions which
should carry away the church property to uses not con-
nected with the church. As to Sir C. Napier's threat of
mischief from hostile steerners, it was an injustice to the
loyalty of the Irish Roman Catholics; a sure way of nul-
lifying any danger in the Channel would be to place the
gallant admiral himself in command there. The assumed
analogy between the unions with Ireland and with Scot-
land was an inaccurate one; for the religion established
in Scotland was not only that of the majority of the Scotch
people, but had been that of the Scotch legislature ;
whereas the religion of the majority in Ireland was one in
which the Irish legislature did not participate. The go-
vernment had been reminded in this debate that they had
promised to remove all substantial grievances and to effect
all safe improvement in Ireland. He believed the now
pending measure respecting the registration of Irish
electors to be a measure of this beneficial character.
He had the same impression with respect to the
pending Municipal Bill, which, mutatis mutandis, was
that of England. Then as to the facilitation of a Roman
Catholic endowment ; on that subject a bill was prepared,
would be forthwith introduced, and was intended to be
passed in the present session. Moreover, it was the de-
sign of government to increase the vote for religious edu-
cation in Ireland. All these were legitimate boons. But
this proposal to take away the property of the Irish
church, whether for the endowment of the Roman Catho-
lics or for secular purposes, was one which, its his:opi-
nion, justice, honour, and policy alike forbade, and which
the government was determined firmly to resist.
Lord JouN Russeeepointed to the present excitement
of Ireland, and the flourishing exchequer of the Repeaters,
as strong reasons for the present motion. From the
speech of Mr. Shaw it might have been supposed that he
was speaking of a Protestant church in the midst of a
Protestant people; but even if all its abuses were ad-
mitted to be in a course of extinction, still there remained
the argument that the whole state provision for religion
was in the hands of only one-tenth of the people. He was
surprised at the high ground of adherence to the Union
Act now taken by Sir J. Gtaham, who had been a party
to a bill taking away £300,000 from the Irish church.
Sir R. Peel had used more moderate language as to the
extent in which the Union Act should be considered as
obligatory at the present day. He would next inquire,
whether the Protestant church now answered the proper
purposes of an establishment so completely that no change
could fitly be made in it? His own view of an establish-
ment was, that it should give the means of instruction to
the people. As the state punished the people's offences,
it was bound to teach them how to avoid offending. For
the diseases of the body, the patient suffering pain would
seek relief of his own accord; but the diseases of his im-
mortal part being 'usually unfelt by him, the remedy was
not spontaneously sought, and consequently those were
the cases in which the state was especially bound to inter-
po.e for his preservation. Besides, where the religious
teacher was dependent wholly on his congregation he had
an inducement to flatter their vices; and to that cause
might be traced the guilty support which was given to
slavery by religious teachers in the United States. Poli•
tically, too, it was inexpedient that the teachers of religion
should have an interest to side with the people against the
state. flow important an object was it, therefore, to en-
gage the Roman Catholic clergy on the side of the state,
by some provision which should make them in some de.
gree independent of their flocks! There were 217 Irish
parishes without a single Protestant; and what du'ies
connected with the state could the pastors of such pa-
rishes have to perform? The church might he called the
eyes of the social body ; but you would scarce think it ex-
pedient, for the sake of having six eyes, to give up the
arms and the legs. It was no argument to say that dif-
ferent supporters of this motion had different plans ; that
was equally the case among those who made the first
movements towards the reform of Parliament; but all had
agreed in the fitness of such a reform, and finally in the
manner of effecting it. The dangers of war were now
treated lightly ; but experience had shown that such dan-
gers, when they actually arrived, had brought concession
with them. True, the Irish people were yet loyal; but
when they should see that you imposed upon them what
no other nation in Europe submits to, the warmest loyalty
might cool. While you refused to apply to Ireland the
rule which you apply to England and to Scotland the dis-
content of Ireland was a justifiable one. Proceed, then,
into committee, and there consider what terms the wor-
thy bishops and clergy of Roman Catholic Ireland will
agree to. Until you have done that, you have no right to
say you have done justice to Ireland.
Sir R. PEEL said, that having in the last, and again in
the present session stated his opinions upon the subject,
he regretted to be under the necessity of repeating them
now; but he should not shrink from such a repetition in
the official position which he held. Lord J. Russell had
not stated the principle which he would adopt in the pro-
posed committee; but he had said that which would lead
to a conclusion that the Roman Catholic religion must be-
come the established one in Ireland ; for he had treated
the discontent in that country as justifiable, unless the
same rule were applied to it which was applied to Scotland
and to England. Sir R. Peel reminded the house of the
extreme opinions professed on former occasions by Mr.
Ward, and cautioned them against going into this com-
mittee, unless prepared to carry those opinions into ef-
feet. He admitted that he had treated the Act of Union
as not absolutely binding under all circumstances and at
all hazards, but he had also stated that its spirit was not
to be departed from without a strong necessity. He
quoted a speech of Mr. Plunket, the authorised advocate
of the Roman Catholics in their suit for emancipation, in
which speech Mr. Plunket had expressly pledged himself
that emancipation was not to involve any hostile attempt
upon the church establishment, and had insisted upon the
distinction in principle between the Irish and Scottish
unions. He had himself, when he introduced the Relief
Bill of 1829, relied on the understanding that the inte-
grity of the Irish church was to be preserved ; no other
intention or impression had been entertained by Mr. Pitt
at the time of the union ; and it was roost dangerous that
these great compacts and mutual understandings should
be lightly rescinded. He did not believe that the reli-
gious animosities of Ireland were generated by the exist-
ence of the Church establishment, or would be removed
by its extinction. Very recently, on the Dissenters' Cha-
pels Bill, he had found much greater animosity between
different sects of Dissenters than between Dissenters and
the Established Church. But if a change in the Church
of Ireland were necessary for the removal of religious
animosity, what sort of a change was it to be? In a church
establishment there ought to, be a control by the state
over the church ; but the Roman Catholics refused to
permit the state's intervention at all. They would not
accept a public provision for themselves ; and so they
claimed that a public provision should not be allowed to
the Protestants, but that the fund should be transferred
to secular purposes. Surely that was no very reasonable
demand. Again, how was equality to be arranged with
respect to the seats of bishops in the House of Lords ?
and was there to be also an equal or a proportional divi-
sion of the churches of Ireland between the two sects ?
When Lord Althorp introduced the bill for the:abolition
of ten bishoprics, it was hailed by the Reformers with de-
light; yet now, only ten years after that large reform,
harsher language was used than when the whole was un-
reformed. His refusal to enter into this committee was
not because he wished to avoid any useful correction of
non-residence, or of any other still remaining abuse, for
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ought to be maintained, and that to go into committee
would be only to countenance delusion.
Mr. SHEIL desired to know what course was to be
taken respecting Maynooth, about which nothing had
been said. Surely the government would not be so dis-
, ingenuous as to offer an endowment to the clergy which
they knew the clergy would refuse, and to withhold an
endowment from Maynooth which they knew that May-
nooth would accept? Yet the government had been
wholly silent on this important point. In Sir R. Peel's
administration of 1834 a bill was brought in taking 25 per
cent. from the church, and giving it to the landlords.
That was no ecclesiastical purpose. (Mr. SnAw said it
was an allowance.) The right holt gentleman called it
an allowance ; he would call it a confiscation ; but call it
by whatever name, it would smell as sweet to the land-
lord, and as offensive to the parson.. He blamed Sir J.
Graham for having thrown out an intimation that to
touch the Irish Church would be to endanger all other
Irish property; that was the excitement of an unfair pre-
, judice—of a false alarm—it was the invocation of the
ghost of Cromwell to mount guard upon the ministerial
camp. He drew a parallel between the Canadian clergy
reserves and the Irish Protestant Church. There was no
express mention of the temporalities of the Church in the
Irish Act of Union ; while in the Canadian constitution
the reserves had been expressly guarded ; yet, under the
popular pressure of necessity the sanctity of the reserves
VM given up by Lord Sydenhain. What he now asked

was, not a subversion of the Church, but only a reqluction
of her revenue, a modification of her establishment. If
the state and the church must be connected, he did but
ask that, as in the state, so in the church, mere sinecures
should be retrenched. Why should the Archbishop of
Armagh be paid more than the Chaneeftor of Ireland ?
Why a bishop more than a judge ? He did not a,k to
suppress the bishopric, but only to place it on a level with
the judgeship. After ► few observations on the supposed
intentions of the government respecting Irish education,
he animadverted on the delay bf the Irish Registration
Bill. That delay he attributed to the fear of government.
lest, by increasing the power of the people, they should
accelerate the destruction of the Church. As in Canada
the government had found it expedient to act in confor-
mity with the wishes of the people, so let them act in Ire-
land, and not disastrously throw away this great occasion
of rendering an invaluable service to their country.
Sir R. INGLis would maintain the Protestant Church,
not merely because it was the establishment, but because
it was the truth. Mr. Sheil's argument was, that he
wanted mot her life, but only her money—an argument
less usual in Parliament than on the road.
Mr. WARD said two or three words in reply, and the
house then divided, when the motion was lost by a majo-
rity of 274 to 179.