The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-07-23 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STA N DARD.

bill—that the principle of reform which it contained was only a
subordinate consideration; that conciliation which it contem-
plated would fail ; he objected to it because it went to apply the
property of the church to purposes for which it was not intended;
ne Objected to it because it would give a triumph to the Catho-
lics over the Protestants, which would not. tend to the harmony
of that country; he objected to it because it was the most sweep-
ing measure which had ever been applied to the church : that
it dispossessed the property of the church from its ancient own-
ers, and gave it to others who had no right to it whatever; and
what was more, that the bill contained not one word to make
this a special case, and to state that it should not be drawn into
a precedent, and that its principle should not be applied to any
other corporation in the kingdom. (Hear, hear.)
The Duke of WELLINGTON said the noble and learned hold
who spoke yesterday evening in the debate had statedthatmany
of the evils which affected Ireland, and to some of which the
present bill was intended to be a remedy, were caused by the
delay of the measure of.emancipation ati.er the year 183; but
he would ask how long agitation had existed both before and
since that period ? Why, it existed ever since the question of
the restricted reaency, and had continued till part of 1829 and
part of 1830. Agitation was continued after tne events of the
revolutions of Paris and of Brussels, and to an extent which ob-
liged the government to enforce the-Proclamation. Act. Now,
what had happened after the accession of the noble earl ? He
chose for the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland a person for-whom lie
(the noble duke) had a high respect, but who, lie must say, was
one of the last' men who should have been selected for that
office (hear, hear); for, after the Catholic Bill had passed, what
was the obvious policy of the government? They should have
done all in' their power to conciliate,—whom? the Protes-
tants, for the. Catholics had already got all they wanted.
Instead, however, of any attempt at such conciliation, they sent
a mans for whom, he repeated, he had a high respect, but who,-
before his recall from Ireland, had done that which, ought, under
the altered circumstances of the country, to have prevented his
reappointment; for, before leaving that country, that noble lord
had sent forth a kind of proclamation encouraging the people to
agitate (hear, hear) ; and certainly, whatever were the inten-
tions of that noble lord in that respect, it was perfectly clear
that agitation had been since carried on to a vast extent. Now
as to the bill before the house, he must say that it was founded
on a conspiracy of priests and demagogus to intimidate by force
and menaces. of mobs, and thereby to produce an effect on the
governineut. This was done by orations and harangues, and
seditious speeches, at public meetings, and by publications
through a licentious press, and by every othermeans which they
could use to get the people to act in large bodies. If any man
set himself up in opposition to these measures, he was murdered,
or his house destroyed, or his cattle carried off; and every possi-
ble means were then used to prevent the discovery of the guilty
parties. Yet this was the result of the system recommended by
the noble lord whom the noble earl at the head of the govern-
ruent had chosen to be the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. There.
could, however, be no doubt that one of the results of the system
was a combinatioh not to pay tithes, for which a fund was raised
to pay the expense of those who held out against the payMent,
and allowed their cattle or goods to be sold under distress.—
Resistance to this system was sure to entail the most fatal con-
sequences on the parties opposing. Every menus were taken to
prevent persons from purchasing at the sales of property taken
undet distraint for tithe, and the consequence was, that the
clergy could not ccillect any tithe, and were in such a state of
destitution that many of them were living on public charity.—
Now, while this was going on, the Lord-Lieutenant admitted
into his society, more than once, persons who had propounded
resolutions, maintaining that they would pay no tithessave such
as were legally enforced. Those individuals were afterwards
prosecuted, and sentenced to pay a fine of £lOO each. But what
happened afterwards ? The, whale of those fines were remitted.
(Hear.) The officers of police did what they could, but nothing
effectual was accomplished until the Lord-Lieatenant, in a
manly and determined spirit, carried into execution the Procla-
mation Act,—an act of which he had disapproved in his in-
dividual capacity, and which he had blamed his 'predeces-
sor in office for enforcing. In carrying that act into opera-
tion the Lord Lieutenant was emiuentiy successful. Then
the noble lords opposite thought it right to dissolve Parlia-
ment, and in consequence of that dissolution, the punishment,.
which would otherwise have fallen upon the head of the
prime offender, could not be carried into execution.--
In the course tthe present session the coercive bill was passed
by 'their lordships : but he begged their lordships to recollect
the alterations which were adopted in it in another place. Such
was the apprehension exalted among the disaffected by the coer-
cion bill as it was originally framed, that for some time many
clergymen were able to collect their tithes, and indeed even
some part of the tithes' for the year 1833 were collected, under
the operation of that act. One fine day, however, a gentleman
discovered that a policeman or a soldier had given assistance in
the collection of tithes, and it was in consequence determined
by the government that in future such assistance should not be
given. Since that time a notice had been published by the So-
licitor of the Treasury in Ireland which totally put a stop to the
payment of tithes. That 'description of property was now no•
longer in existence in that country,—no man thought of paying
it. Three or four years' arrears of tithes was now due to the
clergy, but they had not the slightest chance of ever recovering
it. Now, he put it to their lordships whether, as this descrip-
tion of property was secure all the time that the Duke of Nor-
thumberland was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and as the coun-
try remained in tranquillity from the time of passing the Ca-
tholic Relief Bill up to September, 1830, it was fair in the noble
earl to throw upon his predecessors in office the blame for this
state of things, ihstead of taking it as lie ought upon himself.
(Hear, ,hear, hear.) He did not mean to say that the noble
earl could have done more than he had done, considering
the policy of his government. Certainly, it was not the ob-
ject of the noble earl, or of his administration, to protect
the Protestant religion or the Protestant church . establish-
ment in Ireland, though he admitted that the care of those
matters is one of the paramount duties of government. (Hear.)
Let their lordships look also at another branch of the Protestant
church, which depended on the church cess. That cess was
always paid with considerable difficulty and grumbling: There
was greater facility in opposing the-levying of church cuss even
than there was in the opposing the levying of tithes. There
was-thus no provision left at present either fur the ministers of
the church, or for the retrial- and sustentation of places of
worship, or for the fences of the churchyards, or for the salaries
of the clerks or the. other officers whose duty it was to attendand take-part in the church service. There was also another
class of persons attached to the church of Ireland—the bishops ;
and he would shortly state the situation in which they stood at
present. The hierarchy of the- church of Ireland were under-
stood fo have among them a revenue of £120,000 a-year. It
appeared that two-thirds of that amount was paid to them in
tines, and those tines were paid annually for the renewal of the
leases, of their tenants.. Under the law that was passed in the
last session, the bishops were placed under the necessity of re-
ceiving from their tenants the; tithes of, the lands, which those
tenants held in lease, as the bishops were to pay the tithes them-
selves. In expectation. of the forthcoming. measures, the
tenants refusedto renew, and the bishops were thus deprived of
two-thirds of their usual income. Thus the curates had nothing,
the incumbents had nothing, and the bishops had nothing, save
the rents of their lands, which, on the gross, amounted to about
£50,000 a-year. That was the entire amount of revenue which
the clergy of the church of. Ireland had for the performance of
their dunes and for the Maintenance and repair of their churches.
The noble duke proceeded then to say, that he objected to the
principle on which the ecclesiastical commission on the bill was
to be framed. Except from the noble marquis (Clanricarde)
who spoke on the first night of the debate, he had heard no
complaint against the Board of First Fruits in Irelanda and he
therefore could not understand why the affairs of the proposed
commission should not be transacted by this existing. board,
which might avail itfelf of such lay assistance as circumstances
might require. He was free to admit that if they were then for
the first time establishing the Protestant church in Ireland, he
might be inclined to think that twenty-two bishops were more
than was necessary to the supervision of some 2,000 clergymen;
but when hei took into account that besides that the higher
number had been in existence for centuries, and when he con-
sidered the importance of the Protestant church in Ireland in
relation' to the political ties of the two countries, and when he
ccnsidered, as, a right rev. prelate had remarked, in the course
of the debate, that wherever there was a Protestant bishop there
was also a Catholic prelate, who, doubtless, would possess him-
self of the palace and perhaps the chuich property of the re-
duced Protestant see ; and when, above all, he considered the
peculiar circumstances of Ireland, so different from those of
this country, and which might make the episcopal superintend-
ence of thirty or forty bend-ices in the former country a matter
of more trouble and more anxiety than the GOO or 1,000 bene-
fices which an English prelate might control, he could not
but object to the proposed reduction. ( Hear, hear, hear.)
Auother portion of the bill, to which he also entertained strong
objections, was, the clause which prevented the application of
the public motley to the building.of churches in parishes in.which
divine service had not been performed for three years. Would
not a little reflection teach them, that the unfortunate circum-
stances of Ireland during the last few years, might have pro-
vented, and actually did prevent, not only the collection of
tithes, but the celebration of divine service during that period?
But this was not his main objection to the clause; he objected
to it because it was a direct contradiction of the principles of
those former acts of Parliament which were passed for promot-
ing the Protestant religion in Ireland. If they admitted that
it was their duty, as members of a Potestant legislature, to pro-
! mote the Protestant religion in Ireland, not only on political
consideraticais, but a well-founded belief of the superior purity
of its doctrines, they surely would not agree to a provision
which, in thirty years, would lessen the Protestant churches in
that country more than a half. One reason, therefore, for his
•
going into committee would be, the remedying this detect of the
bill, emboldened as he was by the statements of ministers and
the most rev. prelate, (the Archbishop of Dublin,) that the in-
tention of that clause was different from that apprehended by
the friends of the church in Ireland. These were his main ob-
jections to the aroaisions of the bill. He had gone through'
them with a view, to show the ground on which he shoved vote
for the second reading. He had stated his views of the real
state of Ireland, and of its causes, in order to show the expedi-
ency of their going into committee, in order to afford every
possible relief to the clergy, who were the consequent sufferers.
lie, had aiso.stated the defects of the bill, which he hoped to see
remedied in committee.

Lord MELBOURNE said, instead of observing the calmness
and freedom from party virulence recommended by the right
rev. prelate, the noble duke had given utterance to a speech
fraught with more bitterness of feeling, more recriminatory, and
more calculated to exasperate, than any ever heard in the most
angry combats of peal'. The noble like charged ministers
with having, as the first act of their official career, appointed to
the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland a nobleman of all others the
least fitted for the office. (Hear.) Now, this was a mere asser-
tionovhich he might meet with a counter assertion, just as valid
and far more.tenahle, that Lord Anglesey was the fittest person
that could have been selected for the Lord Lieutenancy of Ire-
land. Now, without pausing to ask, could the noble duke deny
that ministers had, by the Coercion Bill, applied an energetic
reined), to the state of things thus forcibly described,—he would
ask, did the noble duke, nay, could the noble duke mean to in-
sinuate that these lawless proceedings were those which Lord
Anglesey meant to encourage when he told the Catholics to
"'agitate" till they obtained their relief bill? ( Hear, hear.)
Wasit fair, was it just, was it generous, in the noble duke to so
couple his definition with a reference to Lord Anglesey's letter
as to make it appear that—
'The Duke of WELLINGrox.—If the noble marquis did not
mean it, he ought not to have pursued such a course. The ex-
pression was an erroneous one.
Viscount MELBoutINE,—The letter was, he admitted, an im-
prudent one, (cheers from the opposition,) and not such as he
would have advised, but had the noble duke himself never writ-
ten an imprudent letter? (Cheers from the ministerial benches.
The noble duke, though he confessed that it was necessary. to
do something with respect to the church establishment in Ire-
land, contented himself with objecting to almost all the prori-
sions of the present bill, without suggesting any remedy of his
own. lie (Lord Melbourne) thought that the bill was calcu-
lated to effect the purpose which it had in view, and therefore
he entreated their lordships to read it a second time. (Hear,
hear.)

The Duke of NEWCASTLE objected to the principle of the bill
inasmuch as he denied that it was calculated to afford any relief
to the people or clergy of_lreland. Ile denied that he was one
to whom the motto used by the noble earl, (Grey,) fiat justitia
twat ctrtutn, could with justice be applied, since he Ind not blind
himself to the consequences of the measure before the house.
The Duke of WELLINGTON in eplanatinn said, that he ad-
vised loidi;hips, as mop of honour, indeed he considered