IRISH CHURCH-WORK OF THE COMMISSION. 275 did not vote. Thirteen English and two Irish | annual values of some of the benefices and the bishops pronounced against the bill, while commutation:-Clogherney, £1563, commutathere were many absentees, including the Bishops of Carlisle, Exeter, Manchester, Salisbury, and Winchester. The second reading was carried by 179 against 146-majority for the bill, 33. This was the largest division in the House of Lords within living memory, no fewer than 325 peers having taken part in it. It eventually passed through committee by 121 votes to 114, and under a protest signed by Lord Derby and forty-three temporal and two spiritual peers. The amendments made in committee, however, were most of them rejected when the bill went back to the House of Commons; some of the proposed modifications and one or two alterations were accepted; and the bill was sent back. After much contention, a stormy discussion, and the application of some rather unparliamentary names to Mr. Gladstone, an agreement was arrived at that a conference should be held between Lord Grauville and Lord Cairns, the end of which was that a compromise was effected, which Mr. Gladstone said was a satisfactory settlement. Comparatively little change had been made. Mr. Disraeli endorsed the compromise as a wise, well-considered, and conciliatory arrangement, and the bill became law by receiving the royal assent on the 26th of July. The work of the "commissioners of the Church temporalities in Ireland" was not soon or easily accomplished. Not till the end of the year 1880 had they completed the task imposed on them by the Irish Church Act, as far as it was possible without further legislation. Some remarkable facts appeared in their report respecting the life incomes commuted and the commutation money paid, including cases where 12 per cent bonus was allowed. The amount depended, of course, on the age of the holder. The net annual value of the Archbishopric of Armagh was £10,225, commutation money £88,442; Bishopric of Derry, annual value, £6847, commutation £111,867; Archbishopric of Dublin, £8845, commutation £93,045; Bishopric of Cork, £2485, commutation £18,500. The following were the net All tion £19,124; Louth, £1329, commutation £12,941; Carnteel, £1167, commutation £9469; Clones, £1290, commutation £13,298; Killoughory, £905, commutation £16,450; Cappagh, £1234, commutation £18,527; Carrigallen, £819, commutation £12,495. The least valuable benefice was Balscadden, in the diocese of Dublin, which was worth only £4 a year, and was commuted for £47. Examples were given of the values of vicar-generalships and registrarships, which were held by laymen, and the sum for which they were commuted. The smallest income stated was that of the vicar-general of the dioceses of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe, which was only £37, and the largest the registrarship of the province of Dublin, which was £1015. The others generally averaged about £400. commutation monies were calculated at 3 per cent, and the average of the lives of all the clergy at 109 years' purchase. The total number of ecclesiastical persons who commuted up to the end of 1874 was 2282, their net incomes being £589,665, and the commutation money £7,546,005. The number of lay commutants was 2857, their net incomes being £33,060, and the commutation paid £454,700. The total paid under the compensation clauses, including all heads, was £11,343,703. The sales of all the property vested in the commissioners by the act realized £9,794,790, of which a sum of £3,362,648 was received in cash. The commissioners in January, 1881, had no actual balance in the nature of a surplus, but had instead an annual income, partly permanent, partly terminable, of £574,219. For a short time members were able to take breath after the struggle on the Irish Land Bill, and some useful measures were pushed forward before parliament was prorogued. The exertions which he had undergone had affected Mr. Gladstone's health, which, perhaps, suffered even more from the aspersions to which he had been subjected than from the arduous task that he had undertaken. During the recess a meeting of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral to draw up a constitution suitable for the altered condition of the church. A "solemn protest" was issued against the recent act of the legislature, and a scheme was adopted for the formation of a church body from the clergy of each diocese to elect representatives varying in number; the total for Ireland being 124. One dean and one archdeacon for each united diocese, and the regius professor of Divinity, Trinity College, were to be ex-officio members, the provost and fellows of the college returning one member; questions of doctrine and discipline were to be reserved for the bishops and clergy. This was the movement made in reference to the act which had been passed for the redress of the first Irish grievance. In relation to another which it was now sought to remove, the Catholic clergy had published a series of resolutions, adopted at a meeting in Maynooth College on the education and land questions, condemning the mixed system of education, demanding complete secular education on purely Catholic principles, a share of the funds of the royal and endowed schools, and a rearrangement of the Queen's College on the denominational system. These resolutions were sufficient to indicate what would be the insurmountable difficulties with which Mr. Gladstone would have to contend when he should set himself to hew off the third branch of that upas-tree which he had said was overshadowing and blighting Ireland. But, first, the government had to address itself to the land question. On this the meeting at Maynooth had added a general resolution expressing the belief, in which the majority of the people of this country agreed, that its settlement was essential to the peace of the kingdom. It was known that a land bill for Ireland would be brought in. It was inevitable that some considerable change should be made. Before the introduction of the church bill, even before Mr. Maguire's motion which preceded it, the necessity for dealing with both the land question and the church question had been discussed by leading members of the house, and notably by Mr. Bright, whose speeches both in and out of parliament were uttered without reserve, and with his usual emphasis even when he was addressing audiences of Irishmen. In the house he had declared"All history teaches us that it is not in human nature that men should be content under any system of legislation, and of institutions such as exist in Ireland. You may suppress the conspiracy and put down the insurrection, but the moment it is suppressed there will still remain the germs of this malady, and from these germs will grow up as heretofore another crop of insurrection and another harvest of misfortune. And it may be that those who sit here eighteen years after this moment will find another ministry and another secretary of state ready to propose to you another administration of the same ever-failing and ever-poisonous medicine. I say there is a mode of making Ireland loyal. I say that the parliament of England having abolished the parliament of Ireland is doubly bound to examine what that mode is, and, if it can discover it, to adopt it. I say that the minister who occupies office in this country, merely that he may carry on the daily routine of administration, who dares not grapple with this question, who dares not go into opposition, and who will sit anywhere except where he can tell his mind freely to the house and to the country, may have a high position in the country, but he is not a statesman, nor is he worthy of the name." Out of the house he had dwelt upon the injustices inflicted upon the people of Ireland by the maintenance of a church originally thrust upon them as a conquered nation, and by the perpetuation of a system by which the tenant of land remained under what might be regarded as a continually threatening penalty. When the house reassembled on the 8th of February, 1870, Mr. Gladstone at once asserted that the duty of parliament in regard to the condition of Ireland was absolutely paramount and primary, and on the 15th of February he brought forward his proposals for an Irish Land Bill. The work that lay before the government was almost appalling, The Irish question, as Mr. Bright had told the people of Birmingham, was one of the greatest PROVISIONS OF THE IRISH LAND BILL OF 1870. and most difficult that had ever engaged the attention of the legislature, and there were other measures of great importance to be considered: bills for the improvement of the constitution and procedure of the superior legal tribunals; for settlement of the religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge; for regulating the application of large sums of money raised by local rates; for amending the beer and spirit licenses; for relieving the members of trade combinations from certain disabilities which prevented their joining in acts that were perfectly legal, and mutually beneficial; for improving the law of succession to the estates of intestates; and for regulating merchant shipping. To endeavour to pass all these would be like attempting to drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar, Mr. Bright said. Mr. Forster replied that the plan would be for the six omnibuses to follow one another in safety. Probably he scarcely expected that all would get through, but he was just preparing to take the reins of one that required skilful coaching, namely, the Elementary Education Act, for which some preparation had been made by the Endowed Schools Act of the previous session. But immediate and undivided attention was first called to the Irish Land Bill, and again the house was crowded to hear the exposition which Mr. Gladstone was ready to offer. The opponents of the Irish Church Bill twelve months before had predicted that it was the land and not the church which lay at the root of Irish grievances. He therefore trusted that the opposition would approach the question with a due sense of its importance. The necessity for closing and sealing up the controversy was admitted by all fair-minded and moderate men on both sides. He called attention to fallacies, such as that the land laws were the same in Ireland as in England, and ought therefore to produce the same results in both countries; that Ireland had been prospering for the last twenty years, and that the people had no occasion to exhibit feelings of discontent. With regard to this last item he showed that the rate of wages had not risen within the previous ten years, that the number of persons receiving poor relief had increased, the cost of subsistence had risen, and some of 277 the most imprudent and violent interferences with the fixed usages of the country had occurred. The course of legislation for the past fifty years, though intended in a beneficial spirit, had possibly been detrimental to the interests of the occupiers. The Act of 1793 giving the franchise to Roman Catholics had induced the creation of 40s. freeholds, and the abolition of the franchise in 1829 vastly extended the mischief, and, perhaps, under the circumstances of Ireland, the still greater mischief of mere yearly tenancy. The Encumbered Estates Act, which had since passed into the act for dealing with the sale of landed estates, by not protecting the improvements of the tenants, had operated as an extensive confiscation. Parliament also, during the previous half century, had completely changed the conditions of eviction against the tenants. Speaking broadly, Mr. Gladstone asserted that after we had been legislating for a century in favour of Ireland, it was a matter of doubt whether, as far as the law was concerned, the condition of the occupier was better than before the repeal of the penal laws. The present bill would reverse the presumption of law in favour of yearly tenancies, and would not leave owners and occupiers full freedom of contract. The bill brought forward was of a decisive and comprehensive character. In the first place it proposed the enlargement of the power of the limited owner in regard both to lease and rate. Assistance was to be given by loans of public money to occupiers disposed and able to purchase the cultivated lands then in their occupation, where the landlords were willing to sell. Facilities would also be given to landlords by means of loan, to prepare waste lands for occupation by the making of roads and the erection of necessary buildings; and to assist purchasers of reclaimed lands upon the security of the seller and buyer, or the provision of other security of an adequate nature. These transactions were to be managed by the Board of Works in Dublin. With regard to occupation, the new law was to be administered by a court of arbitration and a civil-bill court, with an appellate tribunal consisting of two, and in case of necessity three, judges of assize, the judges having power to reserve a case for a court for land causes in Dublin, to be composed of equity and common-law judges. At that time there were four descriptions of holdings in Ireland, which Mr. Gladstone thought it his duty to keep specially in view. The first of these was known as the Ulster custom. This custom, where it existed, the bill was to convert into a law, to which the new courts would give effect. The second class of holdings were those which prevailed under customs and usages other than that of Ulster; and these, too, were to be legalized, subject to the restriction, that the tenant might claim the benefit of them as an absolute right only in cases where he was disturbed in his tenancy by the act of his landlord, if he had not been evicted for non-payment of rent, and had not sublet or subdivided his holding without the landlord's consent. All arrears of rent and all damages done by the tenant to the farm might be pleaded by the landlord as a set-off, and the landlord might bar the pleading of any such custom if he chose to give his tenant a lease for not less than thirty-one years. Where the buildings were not connected with any custom, there was to be a scale of damages for evictions. In the case of holdings above fifty pounds a year, the parties might contract themselves out of the scale of damages on the landlord giving a thirty-one years' lease, and undertaking to execute necessary improvements. In cases of eviction the following was to be the scale of damages. If the holding was not valued in the public valuation over £10 a year the judge might award the holder a sum not exceeding seven years' rent; between £10 and £50 a year, a sum not exceeding five years' rent; between £50 and £100 a year, a sum not exceeding three years' rent; and above £100 a year, not exceeding two years' rent. In addition to this the question of permanent buildings and the reclamation of land had to be dealt with. For the purpose of promoting improvements, advances of money would be authorized to landlords, to enable them to defray any charge made against them in the way of im was, provement in the case of tenants retiring by an act of their own. The principle on which it was proposed to deal with improvements that they must have a rentable value, and be suitable to the holdings, and the burden of proof was to be laid on the landlords. In other words, improvements should be the work of the tenant, and the landlord should show that they were not necessary; and the measure was not to be limited to future improvements, but was to be extended to those already made. No claim would be allowed for any improvement made twenty years before the passing of the act, unless it was an improvement of the nature of a permanent building, or a reclamation of land, nor if the tenant held under an existing lease or contract which forbade it; and in the case of past improvements the court might take into consideration the terms for which, and the terms on which, they had already been enjoyed by the tenant. claim would be allowed in respect of improvements contrary to a future contract voluntarily entered into by the tenant, and which were not required for the due cultivation of the farm. No As to lands under lease, a landlord might exempt his lands from being subject to any custom except the Ulster custom, provided that he agreed to give his tenant a lease for thirty-one years; but the lease must leave to the tenant at the close of that term a right to claim compensation under three headsnamely, tillages and manures, permanent buildings, and reclamation of lands. From the moment the bill was passed every Irishman was to be absolutely responsible for every contract into which he entered. Non-payment of rent would be held as a bar to any claim on the landlord, reserving, however, discretion to the courts in certain cases. Notices to quit were to be for twelve months instead of six, and to date from the last day of the current year; and the notice must have a stamp duty of two shillings and six pence. The bill also proposed to deal with the question of the county cess, which it would assimilate to the poor-rate. In every new tenancy it would have to be paid in moieties NATIONAL EDUCATION. by landlord and tenant, as the poor-rate was then paid, and in every old tenancy under £4 a year the occupier was to be at once relieved. Such were the principal provisions of the bill. Mr. Gladstone, in concluding his explanation, said that the government were far from believing it to be a perfect measure, and invited in thorough good faith the co-operation of all parties to make it as nearly perfect as possible, for their desire was that it should become a great gift to Ireland, and be the means of putting an end to the grievances and sufferings that had so long been associated with the tenure of land in that country. "I am sanguine," said Mr. Gladstone, "in the hope that it will pass, not as the triumph of a party, but as a great work of good-will for the common good of our common country, and that its result will be to diffuse the blessings of peace, order, and industry over a smiling land." Mr. Gathorne Hardy, acting for Mr. Disraeli, seemed disposed to receive the proposed measure in a more frank and friendly manner than was afterwards displayed by his chief, who, touching upon the various objections which had been taken, wound up by saying that a more complicated, or more clumsy, or a more heterogeneous measure, had never been brought-before parliament. He ended in his satirical vein, ridiculing the proposed tribunals for settling claims, and wound up with the advice to the house to decide in a becoming manner upon the matters to be brought under their consideration. Of course there was a strong opposition, especially on the part of some Irish landlords, who regarded as revolutionary the changes which gave the tenant an interest in the land. They virtually argued that land was either a privileged possession or a commodity for freedom of contract. Mr. Gladstone had pointed out, that though the general effect of the measure might be to impose the possibility of an immediate loss on the landlord, he would not be ultimately a loser. There was a huge fund of national wealth in the soil of Ireland yet undeveloped. By imparting a stimulus to the agriculture of the country the price of labour 279 also would be raised because of the increased demand for strong arms to carry on the necessary work. On the second reading a division was insisted on by a few members who had determined to vote against it. Mr. Disraeli and all but four or five Conservatives went into the lobby with the government, and a minority of only eleven (chiefly Irish members who were not satisfied with the proposed changes) were left to make their demonstration. In the course of the bill there were three hundred notices of amendments, since such a movement in favour of Ireland was calculated to arouse demands in the interests of English tenants. Every clause of the bill was jealously examined. When it went to the Lords, final amendments were proposed; but ultimately, without any serious alteration, it passed both houses, and received the royal assent on the 1st of August. The question of National Education had become of such immediate importance that it engaged the attention of parliament and the country, at the same time that the Irish Land Bill was being so closely discussed. At the instance of Mr. Gladstone morning sittings were held for the purpose of securing time to consider several other measures. The most important of these in public estimation was that which had been brought forward only two days after the introduction of the Irish Land Bill. With dauntless courage and an energy that nothing seemed able to subdue, the prime minister had determined to deal with several great and difficult questions, and he was supported by colleagues who shared his enthusiasm and responded to the call made upon their ability and endurance. To Mr. Forster as vice-president of the council fell the arduous duty of dealing with the subject of national education, a question which at intervals during nearly the whole period with which these pages have been occupied had repeatedly been discussed, and even the approximate settlement of which had been frustrated because of the apparent impossibility of reconciling the demands of the various religious bodies. By certain sections of Nonconformists and Dissenters it had been argued that the state had no claim to introduce or to |