The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-09
THE IRISH CHURCH BILL AND THE
HOUSE OF LORDS.

IHE lINlOI1 Ai1OlhOl DILL NV AAAA@
HOUSE OF LORDS.
From the NJ Y. Times
The Tory Peers have taken time by the
forelocll, and decided in solemn assembly
upon their course of action when the lrlsh
Church bill comes up for its second reading
in their chamber And contrary to what
seems 20 have been the general expectation
i'm England! they have resolved to reject 1t.
Altbouph party lines are not so sharply de-
fined in the Lords as they are in the Com
mons the Tories may be said, roughly speak
ing. to possess n majority OF one hundred IN
4bS MINER house, and the estimate that they
will be able to throw out the bill by ma
ioritv of eighty is probably correct. The
proposal to meet the bill by a direct motion
for its rejection emanated from ex-Lord
Chancellor Cairns, the able statesman, acute
lawyer, brilliant orator and strong Ulster
Protestant who is now the recognized
leader of the Tory Peers. 1t was supported
by Lord Derby who has been at the head of
three Tory administrations, and who, although
he has now formally abdicated his position as
chief of the party, still exercises great infu-
ence in its councils. The opposition to the
course proposed by the leaders proceeded from
the Marquis of Salisbury and the Earl of Car
narvon-the former one of the ablest, most
business-like, and far-seeing of English
statesmen, but separated from the chiefs of
his party by good deal of personal ammo
sity; and the latter Liberal Conservative "
who some time ago renounced his allegiance
to Lord Derby, and has since all but taken his
place in the Liberal ranks. Neither of these
two Peers, however, have any following, and
it may be assumed as a certainty, after the
declarations of Lords Derby and Cairns, that
the Tory Peers will vote en- mIdSSe for the re-
rejection of bill which the House of Com
mons has passed by a maj jority almost unpre-
cedented in the history of party divisions.
1t is not easy as yet to form an estimate of
ahe probable consequence of this most i'm
portant step on the part of the majority in
the upper house, or even to appreciate the
reasons which have led their Tory lordships
to adopt so decided and so dangerous a course.
It seems to have been generally supposed that
the Tories had given up the battle as lost that
their leader in the upper house shrank from
placing their Chamber in conflict with the
Commons on a question on which the latter
had pronounced so decisive a verdict; and that
the esystem-unsuccessful advocated by Lords
Salisbury and Carnarvon-of endeavoring to
make the best terms they could for the doomed
establishment, would be that adopted by the
R1arty. But the Tory leaders have determined
otherwise, and upon them rests the response
bility of having thrown down a challenge to
contest which may result in the total subver-
sion of the existing systems of government in
Great Britain, and which, in any case will be
The most important and exciting of recent
times in England the struggles for Catholic
emancipation, the first Reform bill, and the
repeal of the Corn laws not excepted.
The Tory Peers may possibly rely on the
failure of the measure to conciliate Ireland,
on the intense Protestant feeling which it's
passage has evoked in Ulster, or on certain
possible divisions among their opponents, but
1t is impossible that they can be blind to the
nature of the challenge for which they have
made themselves responsible. Lord Derby,
indeed went so far as to say that personal
fears" ought to have no weight in influencing
the course of the upper rhOuse-thereby mean
ing, plainly enough that the peers were bound
TO reject bill which they could not consci-
entiously approve, even if the abolition of their
hereditary Legislative privileges were to fol-
low. And as far as we can see at present,
that is the most probable issue of the ap-
preaching conflict. If Lord Derby and his
friends persist in this resolution, there will be
n fierce struggle-all the Conservatives in the
kingdom will exert their utmost energy in
defense of the privileges of the upper house,
and many of the more moderate Liberals will
will shrink from assailing them. The stake
for which the Tories are now playing is a
gigantic one, and should the struggle end, as
1t bids fair to do, in the abolition of the
House of Lords, the recent meeting of Tory
peers will turn out to have marked one of the
most important eras in English constitutional
history.