lowing the existence of these powers to be | House that the number of persons arrested gradually prolonged from year to year until that system of government became habitual, that the greatest danger arose to anything like Constitutional Government. It was, he said, a serious danger for England, as well as for Ireland, that Parliament should be compelled to continue a state of things in which all securities for liberty of the subject were necessarily suspended. In his opinion, Parliament was not justified in passing from year to year a measure of this kind unless it had resolved also to deal with the causes of such a state of things and to correct existing evils. Parliament ought not to content itself with a mere measure of coercion; it was bound to take some means of remedying the mischief which made coercion necessary. It was the duty of Parliament not to object to this Bill; at the same time it was the duty of Parliament to insist upon the immediate adoption of some decisive measures for improving the general condition of Ireland. When he said that this was his strong conviction, he knew he should be met by the old assertion, "There is nothing we can do." He should be told that everything had been tried; that no measures were suggested which would have the slightest effect in remedying existing evils, or in reconciling the minds of the Irish people to the Imperial Government. He was quite prepared to admit that no sudden, immediate change in the state of Ireland was to be looked for. The evils from which the country suffered were of too long standing and were too inveterate to allow us to expect that we could at once remove them. Those who promised sudden and immediate improvement in the condition of Ireland were acting the part of political quacks; and, for his own part, he had no confidence whatever in what were called "heroic remedies." But he had great confidence in the efficacy of wise and just legislation. He believed that human nature was the same in Ireland as in other parts of the world, and that a proper system of government and wise and just legislation would not fail in due time to produce beneficial results in Ireland as elsewhere. We must have patience; but he had no doubt that if proper measures were adopted these results would follow by degrees. Unhappily, as far as he could see, we were not even beginning to make progress towards a better state of things. His noble Friend (the Earl of Malmesbury) had told the under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act showed a diminution in the number of persons it was necessary to prison by the exercise of the extraordinary power given to the Government, as compared to two years ago; and he urged that this fact implied a less widely spread disaffection than there was. He feared this argument was not sound. The measures of repression which had been adopted might have discouraged offenders; but the minds of the great bulk of the Irish people seemed to be more than ever alienated from the Imperial Government. [Earl RUSSELL: Hear!] Funeral processions had been got up in honour of certain persons who had been found guilty of an atrocious crime, and this mark of honour was paid to them because their crime was supposed to have been prompted by hostility towards the British Government. Surely this was a most grave circumstance, as showing the feelings of the Irish people? Remembering what was the offence of the persons thus held up as martyrs, the fact that such crowds had collected in their honour at Dublin, Cork, and elsewhere appeared to him to be the most alarming symptom he had yet heard of to prove the estrangement of the people from the institutions under which they lived. He was persuaded that no legislation calculated to improve the general condition of Ireland, no such measures as that suggested by his noble Friend (the Marquess of Clanricarde) at an earlier period of the evening, could have a proper effect so long as there remained in existence the one notorious and crying injustice of the Irish Church. While the Irish people continued to feel, as they must feel, that in this respect they were treated with indignity and injusticewhile this feeling of injustice rankled in their minds, and this source of bitterness was left untouched, no good effect could be hoped from other remedial legislation. As his noble Friend behind him had said, in Ireland alone, of all countries in the world, the Church of a small minority of the people was richly endowed, while the religious teachers of the great majority were left without any provision whatever. While a Church Establishment which was regarded as a badge of conquest and of inferiority by a great majority of the population was maintained in its present state, and nothing was done to redress the inequality, he had no hope whatever that anything which Parliament could do would - discovering a mode of improving the management of that property, and of increasing the funds which might be available for the purposes, whatever they might be, to which they would be applied. But he would remind their Lordships that when last year it was proposed, in the Address which asked for the appointment of that Commission to insert words which pointed to the consideration of the question, whether the application of those funds might not be altered, those words were delibe meet the Irish difficulty. Now, he confessed that though there was a great deal in the speech of his noble Friend who had last spoke (the Earl of Hardwicke) with which he did not agree, he was glad to hear from him that he thought the time was come when Catholics and Protestants must be put upon a footing of religious equality in Ireland. That was an admission which he had heard with the greatest pleasure, and if it were made not by any independent Peer, but by Her Majesty's Government and by Parlia-rately rejected by their Lordships. Why, ment-if the principle of religious equality were once fairly recognized, even though they might not be able all at once to decide upon a practical mode of carrying that principle into effect a great step would have been taken towards removing the evil from which most of our troubles in Ireland had sprung. Only two years ago he had so fully stated his views with regard to the Irish Church, and more than thirty years ago he had stated them so fully in the other House of Parliament, that it was unnecessary to trouble their Lordships by re-stating them on the present occasion. It was sufficient for him to say that, however their arguments might satisfy themselves of the propriety of maintaining the present state of things, they might rest assured that those arguments would utterly fail in Ireland. Their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, without one exception, felt that the maintenance of the existing state of things was unjustifiable. They were supported in that opinion by the public expression of the views of some of the great ornaments of our own Church, and by a great number of statesmen of various parties during a long series of years. They were also supported in that opinion by the unanimous voice of the civilized world; and while that was the case it was impossible that they could be contented with the continuance of the present state of things. He had already said rather more than he had intended, but there was one further observation that he desired to make. He had heard it suggested that the consideration of the policy of the Government on that subject ought to be deferred until after the presentation of the Report of the Royal Commission appointed with reference to the property of the Irish Established Church upon an Address to the Crown agreed to by that House last year. He said that that was an utterly untenable argument. That Commission might, and he hoped it would be of very great use in the effect of that Vote was expressly to exclude from the inquiry of the Commissioners all consideration of the great question of what was the policy they should adopt with regard to endowing different forms of religion in Ireland. The Commissioners were as much debarred from inquiring into that point as the power of Parliament and the Crown could debar them. Therefore, their Report could throw no light on the great question of the policy which they were to pursue. That subject had been debated now for thirty-five or thirty-six years. Since the Appropriation Clause it had never been entirely at rest. There had, indeed, been intervals during which other matters had temporarily somewhat obscured it; but that question had always been more or less before the public. They had all formed their judgments upon it, and, as his noble Friend had justly observed, looking to the state of Europe and also to the state of America-looking to the possibility, at all events, of differences arising in that quarter-surely any man who could recommend the postponement of that great question for another year in the face of all those dangers must indeed be wanting in the most ordinary qualities of a statesman. Could, he asked, their Lordships afford to trifle any longer with that subject? Was it not one which, beyond any other that could be named, called for the immediate and earnest consideration of Parliament ? It was one which, he said, they could not afford to delay; and he trusted that if Her Majesty's Government should refuse to bring it under their notice, when that Bill for investing the Executive with extraordinary powers should have passed into law, some Member of their Lordships' House would bring distinctly before them the question of whether or not they ought to allow that Bill to remain by itself on the Statute Book without attempting to take any step whatever which might relieve them from the painful necessity of going on from year to year in the same miserable was to be promulgated in the House of course of endeavouring to repress discon- Commons. He would not be induced to tent and disaffection by mere coercion, enter upon those topics which the noble while they neglected to adopt any means Earl had brought forward with a view to for removing the causes from which that show that they ought to make a statement deplorable state of things proceeded. at once. The noble Earl had assumed that they were not even going to legislate for Ireland next year in regard to the land and the Church that they intended to do nothing; and then he argued that the Government which so neglected its duty, and which attempted to do nothing, was not worthy of the confidence of the country. No doubt, if those statements had been correct, the noble Earl would have been right in his conclusion from them; but he (the Duke of Richmond) had yet to learn that such conduct could be imputed to the Government on that occasion. The land question had been before the House at an earlier part of the evening; and if he had thought a Motion for the second reading of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act was the proper time for discussing the subject of the tenure of land in Ireland or the subject of the Irish Church he would have been quite ready to do so. He thought it would be exceedingly inconvenient, on a Motion like the present one, when the noble Earl opposite could find no fault with the Government for bringing forward that measure, that the Government should enter into the discussion of the general subject of tenant-right and the Established Church in Ireland. At the risk, however, of being thought to promote a second edition of the noble Earl's (Lord Russell's) pamphlet, he would take the liberty, if the noble Earl would excuse him, of reading one or two extracts from that pamphlet, which, he believed, afforded very sufficient grounds, among others, for not entering upon the subject of the Irish Church at the present moment. The motto which the noble Earl had taken for his pamphlet was a very fair one-namely," Let right be done." They would all agree in that, although there might be on that, as on many other occasions, some difficulty in finding out exactly what was "right." Therefore, they would not quite so well agree, perhaps, with the noble Earl as to what course should be adopted in order to "let right be done." The noble Earl, with that talent for discovering the weak points of his own case, or rather, anticipating what his own great experience suggested to him as objections which might be urged to his own dictum, said at page 67 of his pamphlet THE DUKE OF RICHMOND said, he could assure their Lordships that it was not from any want of courtesy towards the House, or towards the noble Earl who spoke second on that occasion (Earl Russell), that no Member of the Government rose before the noble Earl who last addressed them. The Government had considered, as it was natural that they should consider, the whole condition of Ireland; but they could not but think that that was not the best time for making a statement of the conduct which they intended to pursue with regard to that country; and he was at a loss to know upon what occasion it had ever been thought that the Government were not the proper judges of the time when that announcement should be made. When his noble Friend in the other House of Parliament (the Earl of Mayo) moved the second reading of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, he did not enter into a general discussion of the policy of the Government towards Ireland, but thought it better to confine himself to the subject immediately before the House. No objection was taken to the course of proceeding which his noble Friend then in dicated his intention to adopt, when he stated to the House of Commons that on a very early day, upon the Motion of, he believed, the hon. Member for Cork, (Mr. Maguire) on the state of Ireland, which stood for to-morrow night, he would be prepared, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, to declare distinctly the course which they meant to pursue with respect to that country. It was not necessary for him (the Duke of Richmond), he was happy to think, to add anything to the remarks made by his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Malmesbury) in moving the second reading of that Bill, because the noble Earl opposite (Earl Russell) had distinctly stated that there were but two or three grounds on which any objection could be taken to such a measure as that; but that no one of those grounds existed on the present occasion. He would not be tempted by the noble Earl's suggestions in the latter part of his speech to break through the rule which the Government had laid down for itself—namely, that of waiting till to-morrow evening, when their policy "We may suppose the first objection to be on THE MARQUESS OF WESTMEATH the part of Conservatives in both Houses of Par- said, that for nearly half a century he had liament, who would say, 'There is already a Com-lived on his estate in Ireland, doing his mission appointed on your own Motion. Wait till they have made their inquiries, and suggested in their Report the remedial measures which they consider appropriate to the case. This is surely a reasonable request.' I should admit the request existing in Ireland had been submitted for inquiry to Commissioners fit for the task, and they had been left at liberty to consider what was best for the welfare of the Irish people." to be reasonable if the whole case of the Churches No doubt the noble Earl thought he qualified the objection by the last part of the paragraph; but in the course of a discussion and inquiry into the Irish Church there were several very grave and very large subjects which must arise. Those subjects were suggested to the noble Earl by the observations of a noble and learned Friend of his (Lord Cairns) in the last Session of Parliament, because at the end of that chapter the noble Earl said, Questions would no doubt arise respecting the property in glebe lands." It may be observed in passing, that the noble Earl, taking a comprehensive view of the whole question of the Irish Church, in one short sentence said 66 Whether noble Lords and Members of "Questions would no doubt arise respecting the property in glebe lands. Lord Cairns contends that many of these glebe lands were forfeited to the State, and were granted to the Protestant Church by the Act of 1662. Mr. Hallam remarks that many of these lands had belonged to the Church, and had fallen into lay hands during the confusion of the civil war. These are questions for Commissions to investigate in the first instance, and for Parliament in the last resort to decide." He concurred in this opinion, and did not think that this was the proper time to go into the question of tenant-right in Ireland. The course the Government proposed to take on this question would be stated very fully by the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland in the other House of Parliament to-morrow evening, and he must decline to anticipate that statement by entering into a discussion on the general question this evening. duty as a magistrate and as a country THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I agree with the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) that Her Majesty's Government should refrain to-night from entering into any discussion or statement of their general views with regard to Ireland, as to what remedial measures would be desirable. I do not think it would be expedient to enter upon such a discussion to-night; but, at the same time, I think it not inexpedient that independent Members should express their opinion. I entirely agree with my noble and gallant Friend on the cross Benches (the Earl of Hardwicke). I desire to see the establish- ances, while they might not deny that the ment of religious equality in Ireland. Irish Church was a grievance, they said The very first vote I gave in the House plainly and distinctly that while they might of Commons, considerably more than half be pleased by the abolition of it, neverthea century ago, was in favour of a Motion less it would by no means satisfy them. tending to Catholic emancipation. But, Not only the Fenians, but persons who my Lords, that equality must be esta- might be supposed to be equally disaffected, blished, not by depressing the Protestants, expressly said that although the abolition but by raising the Roman Catholic popu- of the Established Church might gratify lation. It would be a great wrong and im- them, it was not a thing they aimed at. policy to set up the Roman Catholic Church by the spoliation of members of the Church of England. I consider that that would be altogether inconsistent with the integrity of Parliament, with the solemn declaration made at the time of the Union, and subse Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow. PRIVATE BILLS. Standing Order Committee on, appointed: of Committees, were named of the Committee : M. Ailesbury E. Verulam E. Saint Germans L. Camoys L. Saye and Sele L. De Tabley L. Wynford L. Stanley of Alderley L. Belper quently at the time the Act for Catholic The Lords following, together with the Chairman Emancipation was passed. The maintenance of the rights of the Church of England is bound up with the honour of Parliament; but, at the same time, I think that the establishment of religious equality is a measure demanded by justice and by policy. I know not to what extent it may have been the desire on the part of Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh to improve the condition of the Roman Catholic Church; but every one who knows anything of the character of either of those great statesmen must know that neither of them would do anything unjust to the Church of England; and they knew, as we all know, that to preserve Ireland we must avoid giving dissatisfaction to the Protestants of Ireland that they are especially the civil garrison of Ireland, and by them we must stand or fall. do not know that I need add anything at present; but I thought it my duty to express that which has always been my opinion, and which increases in strength every day. I think that Parliament should, without delay, take into consideration measures which should give contentment to every reasonable person professing the Roman Catholic religion, and take away from them everything which, in the present state of things, can be considered either offensive or ignominious. I THE BISHOP OF OSSORY said, he could not allow the opportunity to pass without expressing his surprise that on a Motion of this kind the noble Lord who had stated the grievances, or supposed grievances, of Ireland, and the cause or supposed causes of the disaffection which unfortunately prevailed there, had insisted upon only one grievance that of the Established Church. If, however, you allowed the disaffected people in Ireland to state their own griev L. Ebury L. Churston L. Egerton L. Penrhyn PRIVATE BILLS. All Petitions relating to Standing Orders which shall be presented during the present Session referred to the Standing Order Committee unless otherwise ordered. OPPOSED PRIVATE BILLS. The Lords following; viz., L. Ponsonby L. Colville of Culross L. Stanley of Alderley were appointed, with the Chairman of Committees, a Committee to select and propose to the House the Names of the Five Lords to form a Select Committee for the Consideration of each Opposed Private Bill. House adjourned at Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock. |