of the Temporalities Act, and of a commutation act; for all the proposed measures of commutation had involved a reduction in the amount of tithe. Looking, then, at the reductions now in progress, and those which would be made, if any tithe bill should pass the legislature, he found that a diminution in church revenue had been effected by the provision in the Church Temporalities' Bill, suppressing the bishoprics of 59.000l. a-year. The future tax on the clergy amounted to 22,000l. Then there was the proposed per centage of 25 per cent., or onefourth of the revenue, which equalled 136,000l.; the sinecures of various descriptions to be transferred to the ecclesiastical commissioners amounted to 22,000l.; and the loss by re-investment after redemption, which it was only fair to take into consideration, together with the expenses of law proceedings, collection, &c., could not be calculated at less than 10 per cent., and would amount to 54,500l. The whole of these items constituted a sum of 293,500l. He begged to assure the House that there was no inaccuracy in these details. Now, deducting the sum of 293,500l. from 727,000l., the amount of the revenues of the Irish church four years ago, the sum remaining would be 434,500l., which, he maintained, would be the whole annual amount of the revenue of the church of Ireland, when those acts to which he had alluded should have had their effect, giving credit for the sum of 63,000l. on account of glebe lands.

Sir Henry Hardinge likewise combatted the opinions of Dr. Lushington and Mr. Littleton,

that the existence of the Protestant church as a compulsory establishment, disliked by the great majority of the people, or the want of a different appropriation of its revenues, were the cause of the disturbances in Ireland. The same description of violence which existed now, had existed in the reign of Henry VIII. when there was only one religion in the island. No man could say that the disturbances between 1792, and 1798 had been produced by tithes, or religious differences. The disturbances of that period did not originate with the Roman Catholics, but with the Presbyterians in the north of Ireland, who were the first to commence an attempt at revolution. It was clear from the testimony even of Mr. Wolfe Tone and lord Edward Fitzgerald, that it was not the collection of tithes nor religious grievances— that it was an attempt to convert Ireland into a republic, and not religious differences, which were then the cause of the disturbances in that country. From 1799 to 1813 was a period of war; there were in that period no disturbances in Ireland. Rents were high, and produce bore a high price, and the people were comparatively happy. During the years 1823 and 1824, there were disturbances; and the evidence taken before the Lords showed the probable causes of them. And what were the causes assigned by almost all the witnesses?-not tithes-not religious differences-but the poverty of the population, the subletting of farms, and the want of employment. He would only read the answers given by judge Day on this point. "Have the actual disturbances in Ireland originated in religious differences, or in what other

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causes? The recent disturbances in Ireland have not had anything to do with religion. In what causes did they originate, in your opinion? The poverty of the people, which exposes them to the seduction of every felonious or turbulent leader; the want of employment; the absence and non-residence of landlords, who might superintend, control, and advise." He went on "Those outrages have been inflicted indifferently, and with perfect impartiality. It appeared to me, that the disturbances did not point at, or mix themselves with religion. They were excited by designing desperate fellows, who looked for insurrection and a scramble, and it cannot be very difficult to recruit persons from such a peasantry, to fall in with such leaders. It was property and plunder they wanted; religion was totally out of the case. I recollect perfectly a Catholic gentleman's habitation as violently assaulted, and himself as obnoxious an object to those insurgents as any Protestant could be." He had called for returns of the population, and of the number of outrages in the four southern and four northern counties. He found that in the four southern

or Catholic counties of Tipperary, Queen's County, Kilkenny and Limerick, the population was 990,000; the population of four northern Protestant counties, was 896,000; the number of outrages in the year 1832, in the four southern counties was 1795, and the number in the four northern counties was only 184. In the three years, in the four southern counties, the number of homicides was 219; in the four northern counties 36. The acts of firing at the person in the four southern counties were 177; in the four northern counties, 30. In proportion to population, in 1832, there had been nine outrages in the south to one in the north; in 1833, seven in the south

to

one in the north; and in 1834, two in the south to one in the north, He made these observations to prove that, according to his view of the subject, although the question of tithes had been agitated during the last three years, that did not seem to be an element of the disturbances ; the greatest proportion of crime arose from other causes-the poverty of the people, and the want of employment.

R. SPRING RICE, who argued at great length in support of the resolution, seemed to found his reasoning on the numerical strength of the opposition, when he set out with stating that no tithe bill either could or would pass the House, till the question of appropriation was settledthus declaring that, however just and politic might be the provisions of a tithe bill, and however great the relief which it might afford, he and his friends would not allow that relief to be afforded, nor these means of tranquillity to be adopted, unless they were accompanied by the enunciation of a principle, as to which it did not yet appear that it would ever be capable of being applied to any practical purpose. He complained, like wise, somewhat to the merriment of the House, of the inconvenience of having to argue the question without any report from the commissioners; and, in the absence

of such report, he proceeded on the authority of a private return, regarding thirty or forty parishes in his own neighbourhood in Ireland. In the first six of those parishes there were, he said, 5,330 Catholics, varying from 495 to 1,500 in each, and not a single Protestant. In another there were 851 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the next 1,371 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the third 1,444 Catholics, and 11 Protestants: in the next, 1,449 Catholics, and 21 Protestants: in the next, 3,450 Catholics, and 15 Protestants in the next 367 Catholics, and 11 Protestants. Another parish contained 1,842 Catholics,and 27 Protestants. The next 4,393 Catholics, and 27 Protestants. In the next there were 5,335 catholics, and 12 protestants. Thus in several of these parishes there was no Protestant at all, while in the others the disproportion between the Catholics and Protestants

was so great as hardly to justify taking the Protestants into account. Was the maintenance of a great church establishment in those parishes in which there was no Protestant, either creditable to the bishop of the diocese or advantageous to the country? His opinion, was, that whether the number of Protestants in a parish was few or great-and he did not think that the House, or even those who were the strongest advocates of extreme opinions in that House, would differ from him-no Protestant ought to be deprived of the spiritual assistance of his church; but he saw most manifest absurdity in maintaining that in the parish of Kilheady, where there were but twelve Protestants, the payment of the Protestant clergyman should be fixed on a Roman Catholic population of 5,000. They must be mad, if they allowed the church establishment to be so disproportioned to the wants of the population. He admitted that the property of the church was trust property, and it must be allowed, as a necessary consequence of this proposition, that the House ought to enforce the due execution of the trust. But the property of the church of Ireland was subject to the trust of educating the people of that country; and they asked for no measure of spoliation or of robbery, when they asked that the surplus of the church property should be applied to the purposes of civil education. It was held subject to a trust for general education, not the education of Protestants exclusively, but of all classes of the Irish people. So early as the 28th of Henry VIII. and prior to the act for acknowledging the King's supremacy, and when in

point of law Ireland was, what it was long after in point of fact, a Roman Catholic country, every incumbent was bound by an oath to keep a school within his parish, paying to the schoolmaster his accustomed stipend. Nor did this obligation rest merely on a declaratory enactment; for the first infraction of the oath was to be visited by a penalty, and for those times a very heavy penalty; the second, by an increased amount of penalty; and the third offence, by deprivation of the living. In this statute there was no provision marking the religion which should be taught in these schools; for the schoolmaster was directed to teach the people to count their beads in the English tongue. The clergy evaded the spirit, while they complied with the letter of the statute by paying to the school-master a salary of 40s. a-year. In the year 1786, the lord-lieutenant addressed the House of Commons, and Mr. Secretary Orde stated that it was his intention to move a resolution with a view to the extension of the means of education; and as a preliminary step, he moved for a return of the number of the parochial schools then established in compliance with the act 28 Henry VIII. It was evident from this proceeding that Mr. Orde looked on these schools as the proper medium for the education of the people. Nothing was however done that session, but the following year the subject was again brought forward. The lord-lieutenant in his address to the House of Commons expressed his hope that some liberal and general plan for the extension of education would be agreed to. Mr. Orde stated to the House,

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that by the act of Henry VIII. the minister of the parish was bound to provide for the education of his parishioners, and he then proposed to fix a rate of contribution to be paid by the clergy, in the nature of a property-tax, and subject to what was so loudly exclaimed against a graduated scale. This plan was not then taken up; but it was taken up afterwards by those who could not be suspected of enmity to the Irish church, the archbishop of Armagh, the bishop of Killala, the provost of Trinity College, and last, not least in orthodoxy, Mr. Leslie Foster. Their report declared it to be highly expedient that the contributions of the clergy should be made with more regularity, and to a greater extent than was then paid; and it recommended that a sum of 2 per cent. on the value of their respective livings should be paid to the bishops of each diocese, and be levied by a tax. Were gentlemen opposite resolved to be more orthodox than the heads of the Irish church? and if they were not, why raise such an outcry against the opposition, when they had only acted on the principle of the recommendation given by the report referred tothat there should be established an annual fund out of the revenues of the clergy for maintaining these schools?

He referred likewise to the opinion of the Education commission, of which Mr. Frankland Lewis was the head, and Mr. Leslie Foster was a member, as showing that, according to the opinion of that commission, these schools ought not to be protestant schools, but schools for general education. Archbishop Magee, too, when examined some years ago before a committee, supported

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the principle of general education, and that the contributions of the clergy should be increased. Within these few years the bishop, dean, and chapter of Durham had obtained an act of parliament enabling them to apply part of their property for the purpose" of establishing, in connexion with the cathedral, an university for the advancement of learning." It might be said that, in this instance, the application was to be exclusively of a protestant kind. But if the appropriation was to be justifiable only so long as it was of a protestant character, the bishop of Durham would have been bound to have said, his university was to be exclusively for the protestant establishment. But so far from that, he said, "persons are to be admitted to public lectures on science or literature of whatever description, without being subject, as other students will be, to the discipline of the university. By this regulation many may avail themselves of very considerable advantages from the institution, subject to no previous inquiry or restriction as to their religious persuasion." The bishop added, that, as to those who should obtain should obtain a degree, there might be a restriction put upon the degrees; but he and those who acted with him, founded that college for the purpose of affording instruction to all classes; and they did it upon such terms of liberality as would embrace within its scope persons of all religious denominations. In supporting, therefore, the reso lution now proposed, they had at least, as companions in forwarding such a principle, persons of whom they were not ashamed, although entitled, in the estimation of sonte, to be branded with the epithets of