the Legislature to resolve, by clear implication, that there is a world of morals above and beyond the law, to which mankind must occasionally resort for the regeneration of their laws. To admit this solemnly and deliberately, in full conclave, with a spectacle of murder and famine before the eyes, and the curses and groans and wailings of a suffering people filling the air, is an unpractical thing for a legislature to do, while they might be busy in ordering a plan of distribution of money, some more here and something less there, the suffering of the multitude remaining untouched. Lord Stanley was so far from understanding that a principle is the most substantial and enduring of realities, that he evidently thought he was speaking loftily and patriotically in making his unphilosophical and degrading appeal. He was sure there would be no surplus; and he supposed that settled the matter of the "principle" being unpractical. The third noticeable incident was that the debate turned, for a little while, upon the important point: What is the object of a Church Establishment, to propagate doctrine, or to enlighten the people by instruction and training? Sir James Graham thought the former; Lord J. Russell, the latter. It was for the former object that the Protestant Church was established in Ireland; and it was to the latter, that ministers now desired to overrule it.1 It was truly a controversy for whose principle any government might be proud to struggle to the death; but, till now, no express discussion of the principle of a religious establishment seems to have been entered into during the debates of the last few years. The historical fact of the case in question seems to be, that the Church in Ireland was established for proselyting purposes; that these purposes failed; that, at the date before us, many were unwilling to give up the hope of yet converting the Irish to Protestantism, while, on the other hand, those who saw the hopelessness of such an aspiration, and who neither dared to touch the foundations of the Church in Ireland, nor to let her remain as she was, believed that the only chance for Church and nation was in connecting the Establishment with large and beneficent general objects. The case might have been simplified, and the strife softened, if all parties had spoken out, some admitting the disappointment of their missionary aims, and others acknowledging that they were supplying a wholly new foundation for the Church; but no nearer approach to such frankness was made than by the slight and superficial controversy during the present debate. On this occasion, the ministerial majority was 39,— and the Bill passed the Commons on the 15th of July.2 The Lords again threw out the appropriation clauses, passing 1 Hansard, xxxiii. pp. 1392, 1393. 2 Hansard, xxxv. p. 241. the rest of the Bill, with slight alterations in some clauses regarding stipends. These last gave occasion to Lord J. Russell, and, as he believed, justification, to refuse the amended Bill, as sent down, through a breach of privilege, the Lords having interfered with a money-bill. The question was one difficult of decision, the question whether this was a breach of privilege or not; and the Speaker himself avowed the nicety of the point. At length, the motion for rejecting the altered bill was carried by a majority of 29,- and once more, the controversy was adjourned to another year.1 rates. 2 In the royal speech, at the opening of the session of 1837, we find a recommendation of the subject of tithes, among others, to the attention of Parliament; but the discussion of the topic was intercepted by the death of the King. The argument on the principle of appropriation may, however, be observed proceeding, under other terms, throughout the discussion on the measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the solution of the question Church- of church-rates. The temper of parties interested in church-questions was at this time bitter in the extreme. Lord Lyndhurst had made use of an expression about the Irish Catholics, haughty, hard, and unpatriotic, but still by no means conveying, when taken with its context, the full import which was attributed to it. He called the Irish Catholics "aliens in blood, in language, and in religion." This language was naturally seized upon by the Irish agitators, and reprobated by the English Liberals who were authenticating, in every possible. way, a conciliatory policy in Ireland. A striking scene took place in the House of Commons, late one February night, when Lord Lyndhurst was seen sitting under the gallery, and Mr. Shiel was speaking. On Mr. Shiel's use of the word "alien," uttered with the strongest emphasis, the cheering from the Liberal side of the House broke forth, and continued till it rose almost to a confusion of yells. The members appear to have had no compassion for a man sitting by to hear such reprobation, while prevented from explaining and remonstrating. Never was man more abundantly punished for an insolent expression; and the worst part of the punishment must have been the seeing daily, in all companies and in every newspaper, the words assumed to mean much more than he had intended them to convey, both from the temper in which they were quoted, and from their being separated from his argument. Then there was O'Connell's National Association, threatening and boastful; then there were the bishops meeting at Lambeth, on the first announcement of the ministerial church-rate measure, to prepare a 2 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 4. 1 Hansard, xxxv. p. 779. 3 declaration against it, before it was brought before them as legislators; and there were the ministers vehemently resenting this method of opposition; and there were legislators and constituencies debating the question of the exclusion of the bishops from Parliament. The times were indeed bitter and angry; and the appropriation question was hardly likely to fare better than in preceding years.1 The Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that something must be done to amend the unquiet and disgraceful state of things that existed in relation to the payment of church-rates. While the rate was voted by the vestries, and the vestries were composed of persons of every variety of faith, it was clear that the obtaining of a rate at all depended on the agreement of parties who had for a long time been disagreeing more and more. If the rate were refused, there were no means of obtaining it; and, in point of fact, church-rates had ceased in Sheffield since 1818; and, in Manchester, none had been levied since the beginning of the contest in 1833. It was not for a member of the government to give a full report of the reasons of the Dissenters for refusing to pay church-rates; and Mr. Spring Rice did not attempt it: but there was nobody in the House who was not aware, that opulent men, to whom time and trouble were of more account than money, had undergone toil and vexation to a great extent rather than pay very small sums for church-rates; and that several persons of high respectability had gone to prison in the cause. Many who paid tithes, without dispute, though unwillingly, - paid tithes because the payment was a charge involved in the purchase of their land, refused to pay church-rates, having good legal assurance that they were not a legal charge, and being conscientiously reluctant to contribute, except under a clear legal obligation, to the maintenance of the places and forms of a worship which they disapproved. The proposal of the government was to place church-lands under management which should cause them to yield more than at present; and, from the improved income, to pay church-rates, and then hand over the surplus to the ecclesiastical commissioners. The Church and Conservatism smelt a savor of the appropriation principle in this plan, and they resisted it accordingly. They could not say, indeed, that the surplus was to be appropriated to other than ecclesiastical purposes; but they complained that it would intercept the Dissenters' money, and declared that the Church was entitled to all increase of income from her own possessions, and to the Dissenters' contributions too. Therefore it was that fifteen bishops assembled at Lambeth, and the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered his protest against the ministerial measure 1 Hansard, xxxvi. pp. 1207-1252. before it had left the Commons; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer carried his measure in the Lower House by a majority of only five.1 This was a virtual defeat, and the ministers dropped the Bill, which they had put forth as the leading measure of the session.2 On the 12th of June, Lord John Russell moved for a committee to inquire into the management of church-lands, with a view to the improvement of their revenues. He declared that this had no connection whatever with the principle of appropriation; but the Church and the Conservatives believed that it had, and they exerted themselves against it accordingly. Three divisions took place on this occasion which show the temper of the House on the question of church-property. A direct pro posal on the part of a Radical Reform member, Mr. Harvey, for the abolition of church-rates, was voted down by a majority of 431,- only 58 members voting for the motion. Lord John Russell's motion obtained a majority of 86 in favor of an inquiry into the management of church-lands. Mr. Goulburn proposed an addition of a pledge from Parliament, that any new funds accruing from improved management should be applied to the extension of religious instruction by the clergy to the members of the Established Church alone; and the ministerial majority against the motion was now only 26. From this it appeared that the Church would accept of any improvement of her own revenues; but would neither forego funds derived from the Dissenters, nor extend her expenditure beyond her own members.1 Thus stood the matter when the elections took place, after the death of the King. The church-question was the leading one on the hustings; and, though the appropriation question was that by which the ministers had turned out their predecessors, and by which they were pledged to stand or fall, the ministerial majority in Parliament was sensibly lessened in the new House. The government were discouraged accordingly, and they began to draw back from their pledge, no doubt, from relaxing in their sense of being pledged on behalf of the appropriation principle; and the result was seen in the next session, in a way fatal to their political honor. On the 27th of March, 1838, Sir Robert Peel inquired of Lord John Russell what course he meant to pursue with regard to Irish tithe; and whether he intended to bring forward the appropriation question again, in accordance with the resolutions of 1835.5 The reply was that the ministers intended to place the tithe-question "on a ground altogether new," as it appeared use 1 Annual Register, 1837, 85. 2 Hansard, xxxviii. p 1073. Surrender of ciple. less and irritating, after a conflict of four years, to prolong an This announceargument which produced no result. ment, unaccompanied by any hint now of standing or the approprifalling by the great principle by which the government ation prinhad come into office, prepared Sir Robert Peel and the Church-party for their approaching triumph over the honor of their opponents, the most mournful of triumphs. The estimate of that honor was already so low, that men of every party in the House declared, a few weeks afterwards, that they perceived- some with fear and some with hope that they saw the appropriation principle lurking amidst the ambiguities of Lord John Russell's new resolutions on the tithe-question; ambiguities which were themselves discreditable on an occasion which was professed to be a decisive one. render. On the 14th of May, Sir Thomas Acland moved the rescinding of the celebrated resolutions of the House of April, 1835, in favor of the appropriation question; and then broke out Sir Robert Peel's emotions of triumph.1 He told the whole story: how he offered to carry a tithe-measure like the pres- Reception ent, and was taunted with having derived it from the of the surpreceding government; how he was compelled to retire, because such a measure must, on principle, as his opponents said, be connected with appropriation clauses; how those opponents staked their political existence on such a connection; and how they were now proposing to carry the tithe-measure, after all, without the appropriation; introducing it by resolutions so ambiguously worded that no one could be sure of what they meant.2 The true reply would have been, that the ministers, finding that they could not stand by their principle, were ready to fall by it; that they had been mistaken about the interest of the public mind in the question, and would accept the consequences of their mistake; and that, having faith in their principle, the only thing impossible to them was to surrender it. Their actual reply was, that their convictions on the question were unaltered; but that they surrendered the principle. Sir Thomas Acland's motion for rescinding the memorable resolutions was lost by a majority of only nineteen.3 When the time arrived for the tithe-debate, the 2d of July, the appropriation question was once more brought forward by one who had never wavered upon it, and who was universally admitted to be, from his early action and steady advocacy, the highest authority on the subject, Mr. Ward. He, too, told the whole story over again; and the effect was withering upon the reputation of the ministers. Referring to a pamphlet which, in 1835, had foretold that Sir Robert Peel 1 Hansard, xlii. p. 1203. 2 Hansard, xlii. p. 1325–1345. |