THE IRISH CHURCH BILL-DISENDOWMENT. appointments were to be made to spiritual offices, but they were not to carry with them the freehold or confer vested interests. In the same manner appointments would be made to vacant bishoprics, but only on the prayer of the bishops to consecrate a particular person to a vacancy; and these appointments would carry with them no vested interests and no rights of peerage. Crown livings vacant during the same period would be filled up on similar principles. This was the plan for disestablishment. That for disendowment was more complicated, and its practical settlement would be more difficult, since the titles to many of the claims that would be made were intricate. There were vested interests of incumbents, including bishops and dignitaries as well as beneficed clergy, receiving certain annuities from the property of the church, and the commissioners would ascertain the amount of each incumbent's income, deducting what he paid for curates. Such incumbent might then either continue to receive the annuity as long as he continued to discharge the duties or might have it commuted into an annuity for life. Permanent curates, or those who had been employed in the same parish from January 1, 1869, to January 1, 1871, or had left their employment not from their own free-will or through misconduct, would be entitled to the same kind of compensation as the incumbent, and such compensation would be paid by the incumbents. "Transitory" curates were to be dismissed with a gratuity. Private endowments arising from money contributed from private sources since the year 1660, and not including churches and glebe house, would not be touched, and would be the only marketable property conveyed to the church. Glebe houses were not marketable property, for though there could be traced an expenditure of £12,000,000 upon them their annual value was only £18,600, and there was a quarter of a million of building charges upon them which the state would have to pay on coming into possession. If the governing body paid the building charges they might acquire the glebe houses and could purchase glebe land at a fair valuation. 271 When the proposed governing body made an application, and declared that they intended either to maintain any church for public worship or to remove it to some more convenient position, it would be handed over to them. Churches not in use and incapable of being restored for purposes of worship would be handed over to the Board of Works, with an allocation of funds sufficient for their maintenance. The burial grounds adjoining churches would go with the churches, all existing rights being preserved, and other burial-grounds would be transferred to the guardians of the poor. Presbyterian ministers, recipients of the Regium Donum, would be compensated on the same principles as the incumbents of the disestablished church. In these cases and with respect to the grant to Maynooth there would be a valuation of all the interests at 14 years' purchase of the capital amount annually voted. An elaborate scheme for the final extinction of the tithe rent charge in 45 years, provided that landlords would be allowed, if they chose, to purchase it at 22 years' purchase, and if they did not accept the offer, they would come under another and a general operation. There would be a compulsory sale to them of the tithe rent charge, at a rate which would yield 4 per cent; and, on the other side, they would be credited with a loan at 3 per cent, payable in instalments in 45 years. The power of purchase would remain in the hands of the tenants for three years after the passing of the act, and it was also proposed that the tenants should have a right of pre-emption of all lands sold by the commission, and that three-fourths of the purchase money might be left on the security of the land. The following were the particulars of the expected results: -The tithe rent charge would yield £9,000,000; lands and perpetuity rents, £6,250,000; money, £750,000―total, £16,000,000; the present value of the property of the Irish Church. Of this the bill would dispose of £8,650,000, viz. vested interests of incumbents, £4,900,000; curates, £800,000; lay compensation, £900,000; private endowments, £500,000; building charges, £250,000; commutation of the Maynooth grant and the Regium Donum, £1,100,000; and expenses of the commission, £200,000. Consequently, there would remain a surplus of between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000; and the question then arose, "What shall we do with it?" Mr. Gladstone held it to be indispensable that the purposes to which the surplus was applied should be Irish. Further, they should not be religious, although they must be final, and open the door to no new controversy. Government proposed to apply the surplus to the relief of unavoidable calamities and suffering not provided for by the poor-law. The sum of £185,000 would be allocated for lunatic asylums; £20,000 a year would be awarded to idiot asylums; £30,000 to training schools for the deaf, dumb, and blind; £15,000 for the training of nurses; £10,000 for reformatories; and £51,000 to county infirmaries-in all, £311,000 a year. Mr. Gladstone claimed that by the provision of all these requirements they would be able to combine very great reforms; and they would also be in a better condition for inviting the Irish landlord to accede to a change in the county cess, as they were able to offer by this plan a considerable diminution in its burden. The debate was characterized by eloquent speeches from both sides. Mr. Gladstone had scarcely ever approached, and has never exceeded the magnificent effort which he made on that occasion, an effort which received the admiration and encomiums even of his opponents. Mr. Disraeli's contribution to the discussion was witty, brilliant, and telling; but there were evidences, that though he professed to offer unyielding opposition, he spoke under the conviction that the measure would be triumphantly carried. He spoke of the title of the church being stronger than that of any other landlord, and called disendowment spoliation, if it were effected without reason, and confiscation whether the reason were valid or not; but when he came to apply the argument he used suggestions and illustrations which were afterwards spoken of as being conspicuously illogical and delusive, especially when he pictured one set of landless Irish gentry demanding, from no other motive than jealousy, the confiscation of the estates of those who were more fortunate, or the unendowed hospitals of London claiming the revenues of St. Bartholomew's, Guy's, or St. Thomas's. Dr. Ball and Mr. Gathorne Hardy were among the principal speakers, and while the former predicted that the measure would cause general discontent and agitation, the latter broke forth into a powerful oration, which was enthusiastically applauded on the Conservative side, and in which he touched upon the various points of the proposed measure, and vehemently denounced them all. He represented that in Ireland the institutions were satisfactory, that freedom there was complete, the law as justly administered as it was in England; while the people, badly influenced by the priesthood, were discontented without real cause and ready to sympathize with crime. This speech Mr. Gladstone afterwards characterized as showing fitness for a task which Burke had disclaimed-that of drawing an indictment against a whole nation. Mr. Bright brought to the debate the influence of his incisive statements and his great eloquence. He had already estimated the position when he asked the house, "What is the condition of Ireland at this moment with which you have to deal?" and answered the question by saying: "There is not only the Church which it is proposed to disestablish, but you have the Regium Donum, which, if the Church be disestablished, must necessarily be withdrawn; and you have, if these two things happen, a grant to Maynooth, the act conferring which must necessarily be repealed. Now, in doing these things the house will observe that we shall disturb all the three principal sects or churches in Ireland, and we can only do it, or attempt to do it, on the ground that we are about to accomplish some great public good. It is a great thing in statesmanship when you are about to make a change which is inevitable, and which shocks some, disturbs more, and makes hesitating people hesitate still more-if you can make the past slide into the future without any great jar, and without any great shock to the feelings of the people. And in doing these things the government can always LIBERAL MAJORITY-MR. LOWE'S BUDGET. afford to be generous and gracious to those whom they are obliged to disturb. I observe honourable gentlemen talk of the Protestants of Ireland as being one-fourth of the whole population-of being a million and a half. All that is fanciful exaggeration. According to the census the Episcopalians are not more than 700,000, and let honourable gentlemen bear this in mind, when the census enumerators go round, if a man is not a Catholic or a Presbyterian, he is put down, unless he can state he is of some other sect, as an Episcopalian. And judging from what we know there must be out of the 700,000 a considerable number who never go to church, and, politically or religiously, have no interest in it. Therefore, I believe, speaking correctly, it would not be possible to show that there are Episcopalians in Ireland in intimate connection with the Established Church to the amount of more than from 500,000 to 600,000. Now, this will not come to more than 100,000 families, that is, will not be very much more than the population of Liverpool, or Manchester, or Glasgow; so that, in point of fact, this question, which is held to be a revolutionthis great question-affects only a population equal to that of the city of Glasgow, or of Liverpool, or of Manchester. And it is for a population so small as this, I am told-for I am not versed in computations of this kind,you have no less than twelve bishops and archbishops, and that you have devoted for their service for their religious services-not less than the annual income arising from a capital sum estimated to be, at least, ten or twelve millions sterling. Now, if their system of teaching is really very good, I must say there ought to be in Ireland a more perfectly moral and religious population among the Church Protestants than there is in any other country in the world. What, then, are we about to do? If the house accept the advice of the majority sitting on this side what will be done? We are not going to commit any vital wrong upon that one city population of 500,000 or 600,000. . We shall leave them in as comfortable a position as the majority of the people of Scotland are in at this moment. We shall leave VOL. IV. 273 them as well off as eight or nine tenths of the population of Wales are; we shall leave them as well off as half, and not the least religious half, of the people of England are; we shall leave them as well off as the English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish people who form the population in our colonies, whether in North America or Australia. And what can be more monstrous than for gentlemen to come here from Ireland-and there may be some from England-and tell us we are bringing about a revolution, that we are committing an enormous oppression, that we are hazarding the loyalty of the people of the north of Ireland, when, after all, the most and worst which any of us proposes to do is that the church population of Ireland will be left at least as well off as any of the various populations of the empire I have just described? I hope honourable gentlemen opposite will be convinced that is not a bottomless abyss we are going to plunge their friends into." Mr. Gladstone having replied to some of the chief objections brought against the bill, the house divided, and 368 votes were recorded in favour of the second reading, only 250 appearing against it, a majority which showed not only that the Liberals could command a secure position, but that as a party they had become more completely organized. The bill had still to be discussed in committee, and legislation on other matters was sadly behindhand. The army and navy estimates were in arrear; the budget had to be brought forward; and the troubles caused by Fenianism in Ireland were so serious that it was feared another coercion bill would be necessary. Mr. Lowe brought forward his financial statement on the 8th of April, and though it provoked no enthusiasm it was eminently satisfactory. The reductions made (chiefly in military and naval expenditure) provided for the expenses of the past year, including the balance for the war in Abyssinia. This, however, left only £32,000 as a surplus. and the chancellor of the exchequer proposed a new plan of collecting taxes, transforming the assessed taxes into excise licenses payable at the beginning of the year, and making the income-tax, land-tax, and house duty 81 payable in a single payment early in the year between January and April. This, it was calculated, would place at the disposal of the government £3,380,000, and make the actual surplus of the year £3,382,000, which would enable them to take a penny off the income-tax, abolish the shilling duty still remaining on corn, and entirely remit the duty on fire insurance. There was to be some rearrangement and reduction of assessed taxes, an abolition of the licenses for the sale of tea, and the taxes on post-horses and hair-powder, and a reduction of the cab and carriage duties; these changes would come into operation during the current year, and a net amount would be left of about £442,000. Meetings against the Irish Church Bill continued to be held not only in London but by its opponents in Ireland, where the speeches were often violent and scandalously vituperative against Mr. Gladstone and the chief promoters of the measure. Threats of forcible opposition and outrage were frequently expressed by clergymen as well as laymen. In parliament the discussions on the third reading were long and excited; but the division showed a majority of 114, and it then had to be sent up to the Lords. More meetings were held; Mr. Gladstone and his supporters continued to be assailed with abuse, and it was sought to defeat the measure on the second reading by the peers. At one time this result seemed possible, and awkward rumours were heard. Mr. Bright, in a letter addressed to a Birmingham meeting, had said that if the Lords persisted in thwarting the national intentions they might "meet with accidents not pleasant for them to think of." This was, of course, considered to be very indiscreet language for a cabinet minister to use; but Mr. Bright, in pursuance of his usual personal independence, had not spoken as a cabinet minister, though, perhaps, the indiscretion remained. At anyrate the words he used seem to have produced some effect. Some of the newspapers hinted (apparently without authority) that the expedient of creating a number of new peers might be adopted. Probably a great majority of the Lords did not for a moment contemplate a rejection of the bill, though there were some among them who did so. Lord Derby lifted up his voice in the house for the last time in speaking against a measure the operation of which he did not live to contemplate. Lord Cairns was one of its most powerful opponents; but he foresaw that it must be accepted, and therefore set himself to secure such amendments in committee as would, he thought, help to neutralize its effects. This was the course recommended by the Duke of Richmond, and ultimately followed. On the Episcopal bench the Archbishop of Canterbury, though he could not approve of the bill, spoke with great moderation. Other prelates were more emphatic in their opposition. One striking exception was the eminent Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, the scholar and historian, who had once been at the chancery bar, and who was as much admired as a scholar and an orator as he was respected for his character. He declared that the vain and superstitious notion that church property was in any sense divine, or that material offerings might be accepted by the Most High as supplying some want of the divine nature, was heathenish. Miss Burdett Coutts's market at Spitalfields was as religious a work as Mr. Guinness's restoration of Dublin Cathedral. He was as eager as any one for Protestant ascendency, but ascendency of a religious, moral, and intellectual character, the ascendency of truth and reason over error. Of that ascendency he did not believe the Irish Church to be a pillar. He had no fear of, because no belief in, the power of the pope. Everywhere he saw it on the decline, and a serious blow would be dealt at it in Ireland by removing a grievance which gave the priesthood an artificial hold on the sentiment of the people. On the other hand, Dr. Magee, the new Bishop of Peterborough, attacked the bill by a slashing onslaught which elicited considerable applause from those who agreed with him. Neither of the English archbishops voted; but the Archbishop of Dublin voted against the bill, which was supported by the solitary vote of Dr. Thirlwall. The Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Wilberforce), though present, |