The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-05-27 00:00:00

tinptrial tiarltanunt.

HOUSE OF LORDS.-MONDAY

Lord BROUGHAM brought forward his bill for the
amendment of the jurisdiction of the country. He pro-
posed several bills for facilitating the conveyance of pro-
perty, and the granting of leases; for the admission in
evidence of certain official and other documents ; for the
administration of criminal justice, &c.
After a few remarks from Lord CAMPBELL, the bills,
nine in number, were laid on the table, and read a first
time. -

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—MONDAY.
A. select committee of inquiry was appointed to consi-
der the question of privilege in the case of Howard v.
Gossett, as decided by the Queen's Bench.
Sir R. PEEL then moved the third reading of the May-
nooth College Bill.
Mr. EWART moved an amendment, deprecating the
endowment of any religious denomination.
Mr. H. MARSLAND seconded the amendment, which
was subsequently withdrawn.
Mr. BANKES moved that the bill be read this day six
months. He took a review of the decisions to which the
house had come upon all the previous stages of this bill,
for the purpose of showing that the majority of its mem-
bers was not a fair representation of the wishes of the
majority of their constituents upon this subject. He
complained of the manner in which the Home Secretary
had introduced the name of her Majesty into this discus-
sion, and said that be knew of but one other case in which
the name of the Sovereign had been similarly introduced
by a minister of the crown to influence the debates of the
House of Commons. In that case it was introduced to
forward the wishes of the people; in the present it was
introduced to counteract them. He considered the in-
troduction of the Sovereign's name in the former case to
have been most injurious to the constitution; but he ap-
prehended that the introduction of it into the present case
would prove most injurious to the crown. He then ani-
madverted with some smartness on Mr. Ward's tactics in
Postponing his motion for taking the funds for defraying
the increased grant to the College of Maynooth out of
the property of the Irish church until after the second
reading of the bill, and observed, that if Mr. Ward had
not run away from the " sham fight " which he then
threatened, in pursuance of the advice of that Nestor of
the house, Mr. Hume, whom everybody consulted when
in difficulty, he would have thrown his ministerial friends
into inextricable confusion, and would have totally de-
feated their bill almost at its very outset. In reply to
Sir R. Peel's observation that be had sent this bill as a
messenger of peace to Ireland, he asked, how had the
messenger returned ? Had he returned with the olive
branch of peace in his mouth, or with the letters of
Bishop ll'ggins and John of Tuam under his wing, filled
_ ..,„,-..fast England which he would not dis-
house by reading ? He regretted the manner in
had been received in Ireland ; for if
it should unfortunately be passed, the pain which he
should feel would be aggravated by the certainty that it
would not give to Ireland that peace which was hoped for
from this most dangerous concession—a concession inevi-
tably leading to angry annual discussions for another still
more important one, which would never be discontinued
until the appropriation of the property of the Irish Pro-
testant Church was settled in a way which he was certain
that that house would never sanction. He repeated, that
the voice of the eeople of England was against Sir R. Peel
and his measures ; and since to beseech him was useless,
he now, in the name of the people, defied him to dissolve
the parliament.

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Several members spoke in favour of the bill, and the
debate was adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—TUESDAY.
The debate on the Alavnooth College Bill occupied the
whole evening, and was again adjourned.

HOUSE OF OF COMMONS.-WEDNESDAY

The debate on the Maynooth College Bill was resumed

Mr. COLQUHOUN observed, that the religious part of
this question had been so completely exhausted that he
would not say one word upon it ; on the contrary, be
would arraign this measure on grounds of state policy
alone. Ile then proceeded to show that there were three
parties in Ireland.—the moderate party, the republican
party, represented by the Nation, and the O'Connell
party, supported by 3,000 priests, which he would call the
party of Conciliation-hall. On some points the two par-
ties which he had mentioned last, differed essentially from
each other ; for instance, the party of the Nation sup-
ported, and the party of Mr. O'Connell condemned the
Bequests, Act of last session. On the New Colleges Bill
of this session the party of the Nation had already placed
the stamp of their approbation, whilst Mr. O'Connell had
said, that he must receive the imprimatur of the Roman
Catholic bishops of Ireland before he gave any opinion
either upon its wisdom or the reverse. But these two
parties—the Roman Catholic hierarchy on the one side,
and tie Nation on the other—differing widely on points
like these, cordially united in their wishes and exertions
to obtain a repeal of the union. It had been said, that the
Secretary for Ireland had of late been converted into a
mere clerk of the Home-office. Now, if this were so, it
was not wise to make the government of Ireland a mere
appendage to the Home•office ; on the contrary, it would
have been much wiser to have placed in Ireland a firm,
and able, and enlightened administrator of law, like Lord
Morpeth. The consequence of placing a weak govern-
ment in Ireland had been that the two parties to which ne
had been referring had resumed their agitation, because
they felt that they could agitate with impunity. At last
the government was compelled by the speeches made at
the monster meetings to interfere, and as soon as it con-
fronted the agitation it was put down and disappeared.
He next called the attention of the house to the services
which the Irish Protestants hail rendered to the govern-
ment, and to the ingratitude with which their services had
been requited. Such was the condition of the North of
Ireland at the time of those monster meetings, that the
Irish Secretary entertained the greatest alarm lest the
peace of Ireland should be disturbed, and had the greatest
difficulty in preventing an outbreak. He applied to the
clergy of the established church in the north of Ireland
to use their influence over their flocks to prevent an out-
break on the one side, which was certain to be followed
by an outbreak on the other, and then atter no long in-
terval by a civil war. They did use their influence, and the
Irish Secretary thanked them for their successful use of
it. Did they in return ask for any of the sordid gifts of
office or for laws of increased severity against their Ro-
man Catholic fellow-subjects ? No such thing : they
asked only for security—they asked the government to
put down the Riband as it had put down the Orange asso-
ciations, and to prohibit monster meetings, as it had pro-
hibited Orange processions. They did not ask for the
abolition of the National Board, but they did ask for the
extension to them of the same powers for education which
were given to the Protestant Dissenters of England, viz.,
to have their own schools. What was the answer which
they received from Sir James Graham ?—an answer,
hardly civil, couched in the most haughty terms, amount-
ing to a peremptory refusal of their application. All that
was then required in Ireland to continue the tranquility
which had thus been restored was ,a firm, temperate, and
equal administration of the law. But was that the policy
pursued by her Majesty's Ministers? No. Their policy
was to introduce this measure, which, according to their
statement, was to unite to the British Crown all the differ-
ent parties into which Ireland was divided. To show that
ministers had been completely disappointed in the results
which they expected to flow from it, he read several ex-
tracts from the Nation newspaper and from the letters of
Bishop Higgins. He contended that a greater blunder
had never been committed by any government; and what
made that blunder more inexcusable was, that it had been
committed after ministe s had become fully acquainted
with the state of difficulty in which the government of
France was placed by the conduct of its hierarchy on the
subject of eduction. After quoting a long extract from
the Edinburgh Revise', explanatory of the dilemma which
the French Government had recently found itself invol-
ved, he called attention to the language used by Sir Ro-
bert Peel in 1838 respecting the dangers to be apprehended
from the progress of a party in the Church of Rome which
wished to make the civil subordinate to the ecclesiastical
government in foreign countries. To the correctness of
that language ample testimony had been borne by Mr.
Pringle, who had recently made the sacrifice of place to
principle, unlike another gentleman, who had recently
made the sacrifice of principle to place. He therefore
asked Sir R. Peel whether, with the example of France in
addition to that of Prussia before him, he thought that
the conduct of that party in the Church of Rome was so
mitigated as to justify him in denouncing the fears which
he had once himself entertained as childish and fanatical.
He told Sir R. Peel that his present measure was opposed
to sound policy in Ireland, for it tended to increase the
strength of that party with which he must have to contend
if it was his intention to govern Ireland well. It placed
in the hands of a hierarchy, which he neither controlled
nor paid, a power which in France was now shaking a
powerful government to its centre. He asked Sir Robert
Peel, whether he intended to make the Irish priesthood
amenable to the law, or the law amenable to them ? If
Sir It. Peel should answer, as no doubt he would, that he
intended to make them amenable to the law, then lie
(Mr. Colquhoun) would point out to him the difficulties
which he would have to encounter. You had in the Irish
priesthood the friends of repeal. Unless Sir Robert was
prepared to grant repeal, be could have no peace with that
priesthood, for they were to a man swore to obtain it. Did
he mean to protect the converts from the Roman Catholic
teligion in Ireland unharmed ? Then he referred Sir Ro-
bert to the trials which took place at Tralee, to show that
he would have to enforce the law against them, for they
were hostile to what they called proselytism, but what he
called liberty of conscience. Did Sir Robert mean to
tolerate the conduct of the priests in denouncing individu-
als from the altar, and in thus affecting their property and
even their lives? If he did not, then must be again come
into collision with the priests ; and thus, if his object
were to govern Ireland through the priests, his scheme
was a total failure. He contended, that in this scheme
there were three great blunders. First of all, this bill was
a great blunder as to Ireland. The country had now had
50 years experience of the fruits of the doctrines taught
at Maynooth, and he said that those doctrines had pro-
duced a priesthood the most illiterate in Europe, and the
most inimical to the government and institutions of Great
Britain. This bill gave you no control over the College at
Maynooth, and yet you were preparing to stereotype it
among the permanent institutions of the country. That
was the Irish blunder. The English blunder was, that
the government had taken up this college, which it sought
to endow, and from which the people of England wished
to withdraw all endowment, and was endeavouring to
thrust it down the throats of that Protestant people. The
third blunder was, that Sir R. Peel, who at the commence-
ment of this session was the powerful minister of a pow-
erful party, which tendered him a disinterested support,
bad riven his party in twain by introducing this unlucky
measure. Mr. Colquhoun concluded by expressing his
deep regret that Sir R. Peel should have driven from his
side sincere and honest friends, for the sake of living a
short and inglorious life on the forbearance of his foes,