grounds of history, reason, and right, the propriety of putting an end to an institution which was unjust both as the Church of a minority and as not the Church of the poor. He denied with emphasis that this was an attempt to lay hands on "sacred" property. Such was not the opinion of Bishop Butler or of Archbishop Whately. When, he asked, was this property dedicated? By the Act of Henry VIII., who took it from the Roman Catholics, or by that of Queen Mary, who restored it? He denied, again, that the right of property would be affected by interference with property acquired and held as was this. Nor was the cause of the Established Church of Ireland the cause of the English Establishment. On the contrary, the separation of the two would be advantageous to the latter. Then it was objected that the Irish people itself did not care for this relief. This was not likely, and it was not the fact. It was argued against a moderate Reform Bill introduced by a Liberal Ministry that the people were apathetic; and what sort of a measure did the next year see? He passed lightly over other arguments against the Bill, based severally on references to the Coronation Oath, on the personal sentiments of her Majesty, the supposed danger to the Act of Union, and the imaginary injustice to the poor of secularizing ecclesiastical funds. The argument that to touch the Irish Establishment would be fatal to the Protestantism of Europe he thought might be disposed of by reference to the conduct of the Protestant communities of Continental Europe themselves. It did not follow that disestablishment would injure the Irish Church itself. Disestablishment in Canada, besides confirming the loyalty of that country, as to which he quoted a letter of Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee, had greatly promoted the prosperity of the Episcopal Church there. In conclusion, he appealed to the House, by at least allowing the Bill to proceed to a second reading, to show its readiness to give it a grave consideration. Lord Grey justified his taking from the hands of the Government the task of moving that the Bill should be read that day six months on the ground that it was desirable this should not appear a mere party vote. His own belief had ever been that the existence of the Irish Church was a gross injustice; but he thought the present proposition to suspend the filling up of ecclesiastical vacancies was not the right mode of remedying that injustice or even of carrying out the end proposed by the advocates of the present measure. argued that machinery which at present did not exist in the Established Church, and which this Bill did not attempt to provide, ought to be first created with reference to the disposal of property such as, for instance, the proceeds of private munificence, which it was conceded on all hands must be left to the Episcopal Church in Ireland. The present proposed course was unjust and needlessly offensive. What was not to be done was explained, but not what was to be done. Still further, he complained of the policy by which a measure of this kind, which it was especially expedient to reserve for calm deliberation, had been made the occasion of a

He

great party fight, and he vehemently deprecated advocating its acceptance by appeals to the fear of Fenianism. This vast and difficult question, which involved the gravest religious changes, could be settled only by a compromise between different parties, or by doing away with all religious endowments. He was himself in favour of a compromise, for he was convinced that religious peace, which ought to be the object of any measure, would certainly not be furthered by throwing the ministers of religion wholly on the liberality of their congregations. But he regretted the introduction of the Bill, particularly as forcing the Government to make up their minds hastily, and thus tending to raise an additional obstacle to the final settlement of this question, which he was of opinion. did require settlement by well-considered and thorough legislation. Lord Clarendon showed that Lord Grey had formerly used a very different tone in speaking on this subject. On the merits of the question, he argued that if we had a tabula rasa to fill up we should never at this date think of erecting such an institution as the Irish Establishment, and that there was no sufficient reason for our not removing it now if it were an injustice. What a scandal it must be in the eyes of unfriendly foreigners might be imagined from criticisms, to which he referred, by friendly foreigners. He called for the measure as required by the state of public feeling in Ireland. This reform would not at once cure rancour, the growth of centuries, but it would be a step in that direction, and, indeed, whatever its expediency, it was demanded by our conscience. The Liberal party had been taunted with not having brought forward this question when in office. If they had they would have been reviled as traitors. But the Conservative party had passed through a process of development since then. After reviewing and disposing finally of several objections to the Bill, he deprecated its rejection, which he anticipated, as well because he foresaw the acceleration which it would lend to feeling on this special subject as from regard to its effect upon the reputation of that House, which it was peculiarly important to maintain in view of the coming House of Commons.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that he had always been a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, but he denied the justice or the expediency of concessions like that now demanded. It was the land question which engrossed almost exclusive interest in Ireland.

Lord Derby, who began by apologizing on the ground of infirm health, but spoke with great animation, after criticizing the conduct and motives of Mr. Gladstone, denied the moral competency of Parliament to carry such a measure of spoliation as had never been accomplished, except in the case of the monasteries, against ecclesiastical property in this country. If a certain length of possession gave a title to private property, prescription reaching far beyond the Reformation ought surely to insure tranquil possession to the Church of Ireland, unless indeed the old maxim, Nullum

tempus occurrit Ecclesiæ, must be read backwards. On the principle on which this Bill was supported, the property of the great City Companies might be equally confiscated; and as for the qualification that, at all events, Parliament might take away what Parliament had given-in the first place, Parliament could not properly take away what it had given (else Blenheim and Strathfieldsaye were not safe), and, in the second place, Parliament did not give the Church of Ireland its property. But what, he asked, was the Roman Catholic grievance which called for so violent a remedy as this? The Catholics in Ireland had at present equality, unless equality implied equality of possessions. They had, in fact, every thing they wanted, except their neighbours' goods. The present movement was, in fact, due to a strange combination of Catholics and of enemies of all religious endowments. How novel a view it was that such a disendowment could be legitimate he showed by quotations from Lords Plunkett, Palmerston, and Grey, and Mr. Gladstone. After adverting to the special difficulties of a gradual disestablishment, and to the impropriety of calling on her Majesty to act in direct opposition to the terms of her Coronation Oath, he dilated on the positive evils which would result from depriving Ireland of the class of resident gentry supplied now by the clergy, and the substitution of a more intemperate ministry. It would be a conclusion dangerous to England, and inconsistent with the preservation of the Union; but to Ireland it would be fatal. He warned the House not to shrink from deciding as it thought right from the fear of a conflict which it had not provoked with the other House, or with a current of public feeling of which he doubted the existence.

The Bishop of London explained certain expressions of his which had been construed as imputing unworthy motives to the author of the Bill. He denied that this Bill was founded on the precedent of that of 1833, or of any other Suspensory Bill, and showed that the present Bill would entirely stop the action of the Church wherever a vacancy occurred. But his main objection was that there was not before them any scheme of disestablishment. When there was, their lordships would doubtless consider it carefully; but at present, besides discovering numerous difficulties in the way of forming such a scheme, he could not discover the need for it, or, indeed, among moderate Irish Catholics the desire for it. Peace was what Ireland required. The Irish Church Establishment might be modified with advantage; but to destroy it would be to hand over Ireland altogether to the Roman Catholic Church, and to bring on the repeal of the Union.

The Earl of Carnarvon (being one of those Ministers who had seceded from Lord Derby's Cabinet on the Reform question) made an able speech in support of the Bill. He said he regretted that the question had been mixed up with party politics. Without impugning the motives of the promoters of the Bill he attributed their action to the policy of the Government in placing in the van

a reckless scheme to establish a Roman Catholic University and making proposals for "levelling up." In his opinion it would be safer for the Irish Church, whilst still unbroken by defeat, to come to terms with her declared opponents than to trust to false friends. Acry had now been raised that the Church of England was in danger. Nothing could be more wanton, reckless, and even criminal than the course taken by Government in binding up the English and Irish Churches. Nothing could be more widely different than the positions of these two institutions. The one expands on all sides and reigns in the hearts of the people, but nothing of that sort can be said of the other. The noble earl then proceeded to show that the Irish Church had failed in its functions, and said no one could think it just to make Episcopacy in Scotland or Protestantism in France the Established Churches of those countries. And if, which God forbid! the members of the Church of England were to dwindle down to an eighth of the population, it would be manifestly unjust that they should retain their predominance. The noble earl concluded by saying, that although he should not have brought forward this measure, yet, having it before him, he could not take the responsibility of rejecting it.

The Marquis of Salisbury, who had quitted Lord Derby's Administration at the same time as Lord Carnarvon, adopted a different conclusion as to this question. He said he inferred from the very exceptional character of this Bill, which would throw the whole ecclesiastical system of Ireland into disorder, that the design of it was to prejudice the question when it should come before the future House of Commons. The Bill was said to leave three-fifths of the Irish Church's property to it. But it left this only to the clergy. To the Church the measure was one of complete spoliation, as sweeping as human or radical ingenuity could devise, and the principle of which would apply equally to Wales or Cornwall. It was not the less unjust that it dealt with national property, for the principle on which some property was supposed capable of being dealt with by the State he held to be simply evolved from the depths of a "liberal" consciousness. No case of trusts unfulfilled had been made out; and the solitary plea for the confiscation was that others coveted the Church funds. On the highest ground, then, of justice to the Irish Church and to the Irish Protestants, who had always been loyal, but whose loyalty might not be proof against so ungenerous a return, he called on the House, without paying regard to arguments about Fenianism, or to threats of the consequences of differing from the House of Commons, to reject so crude and violent and so objectless a measure.

The Archbishop of Armagh declared that the Bill would throw the whole ecclesiastical system in Ireland into confusion, and that it would prove especially unjust to the poorer clergy, by taking away the episcopal patronage, which was their peculiar resource. The disestablishment, of which this was the preliminary, was, he earnestly contended, a violation of Lord Castlereagh's compact

acquiesced in by the Catholics themselves-on which the Union was based; and was peculiarly ill-timed now, when the Irish Church was working with unprecedented zeal and success, as, indeed, sufficiently appeared from the difference in the proportion of Churchmen now to what he showed it was in the time of Sir William Petty. If the progress had not of old been equally great, let the civil policy answer for it. The State had systematically discountenanced proselytizing. It had countenanced the spoliation of the Church. It was said that the Irish Church was the Church of an eighth part of the population. Yes, and it possessed but an eighth part of the tithes. Whatever it had done it had been left to do by itself; and even a great part of its actual income came from the gift of James I. of 111,000 acres for the promotion of the Protestant faith and the benefactions of individual Irishmen. He concluded by a solemn appeal against a measure dangerous to the interests of the Empire and the Royal supremacy, and which would embarrass, though it could not destroy, the Protestant Church of Ireland.

Lord Dufferin advocated the second reading, not as representing his party, but as an Irishman and a Churchman. He thought the charges of the inutilility of the Irish Church Establishment and its injustice and offensiveness to the Catholics of Ireland had been fully made out, and he demanded a remedy for a state of things which now made it hard even for the Heir to the Throne to visit part of her Majesty's dominions without complications and embarrassments.

The Archbishop of York dwelt upon the impracticability of working the Irish Church if the House passed this Suspensory Bill, which, he warned their lordships, by reference to other Suspensory Bills, might, though stated to be for a year, last in operation for many years. He attacked the measure as making no proper provision for discipline in the case of vacancies of sees and parishes; as a spoliation of the Protestant laity, whose wrongs no one seemed to have regarded; and as in its financial arrangements unjust and ungenerous. Its advocates did not claim for it that it would do much good, and he could tell them that it would do a great deal of harm. The Irish Church had abuses; but it had had a very difficult part to play, and might eradicate them as the Church of England had eradicated many of its own abuses.

Lord Shaftesbury was vehemently opposed to the disestablishment of the Irish Church. He, moreover, considered the Bill feeble, meagre, and insignificant. But he feared that its rejection on the eve of an election might be used to induce a feeling that the House was opposed to a full inquiry on this subject, and might thus prove injurious to the Irish Church. He concluded by announcing his intention, out of regard to the opinion of friends, of taking no part in the division.

The Duke of Argyll supported the Bill with a speech of great argumentative force. He said that he gladly accepted