New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-07-28
D1SFST1RLISHuENT ENDOWED.

DISESTA BLISHMENI ENDOO ED'
The Church bill has become law, and Parlla-
ment is to adjourn to the 10th of August. We
are left to reflect then, respecting the one
great and tedious labor of the British Legisla-
ture. that now, as ever, it has with most elab-
CRATE ingenuity contriyed half measure in
stead of n whole one. A century of agitation
has won at last the principle of Disestabhsh-
ment, not through sentiment of strict justice,
exactly, but partly from menacing necessity
and in part because the Establishment had
amassed enough plumber by endowment to bnbe
itself respectfully out Of existence. The English
Establishment was paid so handsomely for dying
that it is a question if it be dead at all, ana
whether so much reward is not n kind OF resur-
rection. However this may be, an army of
pensioned curates, with their bishops ana
globes, still live.
The debate on the bill will constitute an i'm
portant but prolix chapter in British history. The
Peers will not suffer by comparison with their
predecessors as to the capacity OF concatenatlng
sophisms and learned prejudices, and of utter
ing TO the vexed ears of Englishmen linked te-
dunn long drawn out 1t will be said that few
of the Lords were bright enough and wise
enough to rank with the laureled Senators of
a generation bygOne but Russelps tact, Sails
burys weight, Cairnss hard persistency,
Derby's fire, and Granville's browning adj
dress and grace, will be remembered.
Had the lay Peers done nothing lat
all but darken counsel, it would still
have to be said that the Lords Bishops
have indicated the reputation of the
House for talent, for obstinacy, for world
illness, and well-educated wrongheadedness.
The amendments of his handsome and reverend
grace of Canterbury were shrewd, and the
speeches of Bishops Thirlwall and Magee have
been seldom surpassed in rhetoric and force.
For further particulars Of the Lords, We must
beg reference to the record of their retrogres-
sions during forty years. What they lately
did against disestablshment they did against
Catholic and Jewish emancipation, against the
abolition Of the cOrn-laws against reform and
against education. But the Lords have rem
dered at least one provision of justice in the
late bill, by undoing their amendment that
the Bishops Of the Irish Church should con-
tnue to sit among the Lords, and so have
spared Catholic country the shame and wrong
| Of being represented by such men as Arch
bishop Trench, while Cardinal Cullen has so
much better right to place among the Peers.
The passage of the Church bill was in no
sense an act of grace on the part of the Lords,
| but q concession extOrted out Of their fears.
They would have kept tho Bishops in their
seats and have absorbed the entire property
and purse of the Establishment. BY annuities
they asked for the Church an excess of e.
100000, though literally endowed in this way
already; by parsonages, $4,000; by the Ulster
globes and private endOwments, several
millions. The English Premier reck-
oned the total proceeds of Church
property at G16OOO,00O; the amount Of COM
pensation allowed by the bill at Gs,650,0OO and !
the surplus at G7,3JO,0OO. The Lords, by
amendments in favor of extra compensation,
reduced the surplus to three millions. The
seven hundred thousand Episcopalians in Ire
land would have taken seven millions of the
Church propertyIwhile four millions and a half
of Catholics and half million Presbyterans
would have received together about million.
Although we are not refreshed with
the full details of tie bill as it
passed in its last amendment We sus-
pect that the ratio of distribution remains
almost the same as we have indicated. Though
instead of the great Ulster grant, sequestrated
from the Irish by King James, and the private
endowments dating back to 1860 the Church
was to receive a sum of 100000 cash, the Dis
establishment was still nightly endowed. Mr.
Gladstone was willing to give it $40000,000
it was anxious to take, and probably would |
get, $45000,0O0. What the four million and
half of Catholics get out of this large sum
mainly appropriated to One-seventh of their |
number, is not worth mentioning. There was |
even a disposition in the hungry bench of |
Bishops to deYour surplus intended for I" the |
advantage of the Irish people," and |
for the "relief of calamity and suffering" |
The bill as passed has not yet come to hand, |
yet we are safe to say that it has no right |
claim to be considered just or a generous, or |
even an entirely expedient measure 1t is q |
great good thing that Disestablishment is, in |
any way, an accomplished fact; but we do not |
see that the Peers of to-day were more liberal |
than George Ill, who was willing to pay the |
Catholic clergy, or than Pitt, who would have |
established both Churches after fashon-and |
finally we have to lament that seldom have |
Lords temporal and spiritual carried on n cru
SADIE in favor Of the Church in less Christian |
spirit. The lion of the Church has quilted the |
scene with anything but lamb-likc satisfaction |
and compensation, and justice has been done |
in truly liOn-like way. The Establishment |
has fallen but the house of the Endowment is |
still a high structure.
"
There's Canadian minstrel by name George |
w. johnson, who has published in verse his
N,io,U of onuayotion 70 which "a n rnottnr Of |