图书图片
PDF
ePub

before, which kept Irishmen apart, and the very contrast the freer liberty in mata feeling of this kind, be it sentimental, ters political. Irrespective of political conor be it material, must in the interest sequences he wished for peace and harmony of the country, command attention in in that country. He did not look on the that House. There had been three de- disestablishment of the Church as a cure fences usually made for the retention of for Ireland's grievances, but he did regard the Establishment-that it was the Apos- it as the first stone in a future temple of tolic, that it was the united, and that concord. He would appeal to Irish Proit was a missionary Church. To be the testant gentlemen to accept what was inApostolic would be inconsistent with its evitable. They for years had possessed being the united Church, for the Church to wealth, education, and position; when rewhich it was united, created as it was by ligious prejudices were removed they would Act of Parliament, could not claim to be give them advantages in the race for poliApostolic. As regards its being the united tical distinction, and without, as now too Church, it was strange for an united Church often was the case being obliged to coerce how jealous the clergy in Ireland were of an unwilling tenantry they would find themEnglish appointments being made there; selves voluntarily elected to seats in that and as to its doctrine, it could be considered House. He said this much, being anxious as Anglican only by virtue of its union with as a Catholic to reply to the questions that the State. He need not speak of it as a had been put to the Catholic Members in missionary Church. Burke had said, if that House as to the grounds on which Ireland were Hindoo there would have they supported the Resolutions of the right been no Church Establishment, but in hon. Gentleman. India, composed as it was of populations professing Bhuddist, Hindoo and Mahomedan doctrines, he saw that the British Government of India allowed none of its officials to meddle with the religion of the people; and could it be contended that what we did not permit in India we were to allow in a country like Ireland, separated from England but by a narrow sea. The anxiety to preserve this Establishment existed alone in the higher classes. He had that evening been credibly informed in that House that seven-eighths of the Presbyterian clergy were against the continuance of the Establishment. He could well understand members of some leading families in Ireland, traditionally connected with Toryism, being anxious to preserve it. The representation of the North of Ireland was preserved to the Tory party alone by shaking this rag of ascendancy in the faces of the Ulster Protestants. Were religious distinctions no longer to exist an Ulster Protestant would in politics be like his coreligionist in Scotland or in the North of England, he would not say a Republican, but a very advanced Liberal, and political loss would ensue to the Irish Conservatives. It might, however, be said that the genius of Catholicity being Conservative, there might be a gain in the opposite direction. He (Sir Patrick O'Brien) did not care if it were so, but he might be allowed to say, with the mass of Irish Catholics, that the very submission to authority which was imposed upon them by their religion in matters of faith they felt left them by

MR. KARSLAKE said, he had listened with much pleasure to the interesting speech of the learned Serjeant who had just sat down. [Laughter.] Well, had the hon. Baronet chosen the legal profession he could hardly have failed to attain that distinction. The hon. Baronet had said that to accede to the first Resolution would be to take the Irish question out of hot water. But, if so, how did it happen that the Irish question had been kept in hot water so long? Why had it not occurred to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) that it was necessary to propose such summary and stringent Resolutions before? He would shortly state his objections to the Resolutions. The first Resolution must be considered by the Committee either by itself or in connection with the second and third, and what was that Resolution? It was a declaration by one branch of the Legislature alone, which was not intended to be followed up by any action whatever. Now, in a judicial body, and in that House, too, it was contrary to all rule to give opinion to expressions which were not to be followed up by action, and that rule prevailed even where the body could give effect to such expression of opinion. How much more strongly, then, would it hold good of that House, which was fluctuating in its nature, and a great part of which must be changed before next Easter? Even if this were to be the House of Commons which would sit next year, it would be contrary to all the views

and practices of Englishmen to pass a Resolution which would be mere brutum fulmen. But to the first Resolution taken in connection with the second and third there was a still more serious objection. The second Resolution in itself was open to the same objection as the first-it was not a declaration of opinion by the Judges who were to pass sentence, but by a body, many of whom would not be in that House next year. But were they to declare in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish Church-in other words, were they to give the Reformed Parliament a hint as to the view it ought to entertain on a question so serious, so momentous, involving so many questions running into one another, as it were wheels within wheels, that he believed younger Members than himself would never see the end of it? But even if the first and second Resolutions were carried, and a Bill introduced to give them effect, in spite of all the able speeches he had heard on the subject, he felt still a difficulty in understanding the third Resolution. That Resolution recommended an Address to Her Majesty, praying that She would be graciously pleased to place her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church at the disposal of that House. Now, he did not attach much weight to the objection derived from the Coronation Oath. It was imposed by Parliament, and the same power which tied the knot could untie it. If hon. Gentlemen thonght that before August next the House of Commons would pass a measure which would be accepted by the House of Lords and by Her Majesty the thing might be done. But he was not sure that hon. Members recollected the words of the Oath. They were to this effect that Her Majesty was bound to the utmost of her power to maintain the Reformed Religion established by law, and to preserve unto the Bishops and clergy of this realm and the churches committed to their charge all such rights and privileges as by law appertained to them or any of them. By one of the Articles of the Act of Union the Church of Ireland and the Church of England were made one and indivisible, under the title of The United Church of England and Ireland." By that Article the preservation of an endowed Church in Ireland was maintained. Now, the first two Resolutions, if taken without the third, would lead to nothing-they were merely abstract. As regarded the third, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, kuowing that an

[ocr errors]

Act of Parliament on the subject during the present Session was impossible, called on the House to address Her Majesty to take a step which would prejudice the whole question that was to come, not before this Parliament, but before a Parliament which, to a great extent, was certain to be differently constituted from the present one. He submitted that the House ought to stop the proceeding in limine by saying that the time had not come for taking this question into consideration. He spoke with great deference, because he knew that his right hon. Friend the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) would say again, as he said before, that the time had come and the man. For himself he knew that, if a few years ago, when he was asked to go down to Oxford to vote for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, not as a Liberal candidate, but as the best of two Conservative candidates, he could have supposed that in 1867 the right hon. Gentleman would bring forward such Resolutions as were now before the Committee, he should have asked a question or two, and have hesitated to give him (Mr. Gladstone) his vote. The constituencies of England would have to make up their minds on this question, and he had no doubt they were considering it now. At present he should content himself with saying that the hour was not come, and that the place for deciding on the fate of the Irish Church was not this present House of Commons.

MR. ALLEN said: I felt anxious to say a few words in the course of this debate, looking at the matter from that stand-point which I think a member of the English Established Church may fairly take. And I feel bound to give my vote in favour of this Resolution, because I am fully convinced of the justice and necessity of the Irish Church ceasing to exist as an Es tablishment. For although a Churchman myself, I regard the Irish Church as an anomaly which ought to exist no longer, and indeed as an anomaly which never ought to have existed at all; that in a country with a population of 5,500,000, the Established Church, with its great revenue of £450,000 per annum, should be the Church of a small minority of 690,000 people. Now this is a state of things with reference to an Established Church to which, I believe, no parallel can be found in the history of Christianity; and it is a state of things which I hold it would be unwise and unjust in this House to allow to exist any longer.

There can be no question that as a missionary Church, as it has been termed in the course of this debate, it has been a failure; and, indeed, I believe it has caused the Roman Catholics of Ireland to look on Protestantism with hatred and disfavour, and has naturally prejudiced them against it, when they have seen the Church of a small minority placed in the position of a richly endowed Establishment, to which they have been compelled directly and indirectly to contribute. Protestantism has thus been constantly presented before them as the religion of ascendancy; it has been daily presented before their eyes as the richly endowed religion of what they considered a conquering race, and it is no wonder that they have rejected it. Instead of coming before them as a faith which was trying to win its way with the meek and earnest zeal of a missionary Church, depending alone for support on the devotion of its own adherents, it has come before them with all the pomp and state of a richly endowed Establishment, with a long array of Archbishops, and Bishops, and deans, and canons, with large incomes, and, unfortunately in many instances, scarcely any duties to perform. Many of these have been excellent and holy men-men who would have adorned any Church, but they have been placed in an entirely false position; Protestantism has itself been placed in a false position; and the consequence has been that in Ireland it has been a failure, and the efforts of its teachers have been paralyzed. In fact, speaking myself as a Protestant, I can come to no other conclusion than that the Irish Church Establishment has been one great barrier to the spread of Protestantism in that country. I will put it to any Protestant Gentleman in this House, if here in England, where the Roman Catholic Church being as it is, the Church of a small minority, were nevertheless the Established Church, supported by great revenues and endowments, whether it would not render the Protestants of this country much more hostile to Romanism than they are at present; because it would then always be presented before their eyes as a Church which was based on, and supported by, a great act of injustice? Now there are two ways of dealing with this question the one is the plan of disestablishing and disendowing the Irish Church, and in time reducing and taking away the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum, or, as it is termed, levelling downwards; the other, which is the plan of VOL. CXCI. [THIRD SERIES.]

hon. Members opposite, and has been frequently hinted at in their speeches, is, instead of disendowing the Irish Church, to endow the Roman Catholic priesthood, to found a Roman Catholic College, and to raise the amount of the Regium Donum, or, in other words, to level upwards, by endowing all alike. But how supremely ridiculous and costly this scheme would be. In the first place, in order to do justice, you would have to give the Roman Catholics-being eight times as numerousjust eight times as much endowment; in the second place, you would have to largely increase the Regium Donum; and in the third place, you would have to offer endowments to the other Protestant sects, who would most probably have too much good sense to accept them. Now do you for a moment believe that the Protestant feeling of this country would allow you to do this, more especially as the Irish Catholic priesthood do not ask for endowment, and even declare they would not accept it, and when, moreover, many of the most enlightened Presbyterians are of opinion that the Regium Donum does them more harm than good, by checking the flow of private liberality? Now this being the case, there only remains one way, and that is the plan recommended in these Resolutions, and I honestly believe it is the only wise and just course we can pursue. But then it is said that the disestablishment of the Irish Church is only the first step towards the disestablishment of the English Church: but this I deny altogether; the condition of the two Churches is essentially distinct: the one is the Church of a small minority, existing in the face of, and opposed to, the wishes of a large and hostile majority; the other is the Church of the majority, and even many of those who do not belong to it agree with most or all of its doctrines. The disestablishment of the Irish Church can never be used as an argument for the disestablishment of the English Church, till the situation of the two Churches becomes identical; so long as the English Church is the Church of the majority it will stand, and when it ceases to be the Church of the majority it must fall, because then its existence as an Establishment will be opposed to the feelings and wishes of the majority of the nation. There is a vital difference between the existence of a Church as an Establishment and its existence as a teacher of truth and religion; its existence as the former can only be maintained while it is the Church of the majority of the 2 Y

people; as the latter it may exist, though its members are few and only a very small minority; the one is a mere State arrangement, depending on time and circumstances; the other depends on the truth of the faith it teaches, and the zeal of its adherents. As a Protestant, and as a Churchman, I hold it just and right that the Irish Church should cease to exist as an Establishment, opposed as it is to the views and wishes of a vast majority of the Irish people; while, as a teacher of truth and religion, I believe it will still survive, and live a more vigorous life, and flourish more, than it has ever done before.

MR. BENTINCK said, he thought the House ought to be grateful to the hon. Member for the King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien) for his statement that the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman would not be a panacea for the people of Ireland. That was not the only time the hon. Baronet had made that significant statement, for at a meeting of the Liberation Society, held in December last, he said that the Irish Church was no serious grievance; but they had still higher authority to the same effect from Archbishop Manning in his letter to Earl Grey, who said

"I will not shrink from venturing even upon the land question, because it is the chief condition on which the peace of Ireland depends.

In comparison with it all others are light. It is the question of peace or social war." If that were so what became of the Resolutions of the right hon. Gentleman? What did the right hon. Gentleman himself say was the primary cause of his bringing forward the Motion? He said it was the intensity of Fenianism. But Fenianism existed while the right hon. Gentleman was in power, and how, on his own shewing, could he justify himself for not then endeavouring to deal with the question? The right hon. Gentleman addressed his constituents last December at Ormskirk, and did he say anything about disestablishing the Irish Church? He said he wished to establish in Ireland the principles of religion. [Mr. GLADSTONE: The principles of religious equality.] That did not involve the necessity of passing such Resolutions as were now proposed. The fact was, it had not then been settled by the governing body of the so-called Liberal party that such was to be their policy. If it had, Earl Russell would not have written his letter to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth (Mr. Chichester Fortescue). The principles

embodied in that pamphlet were not those now advocated; and, moreover, the right hon. Gentleman in speaking on the Motion of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Maguire) did not venture to express an opinon that if the Irish Church should be disestablished and its property confiscated tranquillity would necessarily follow. This was the first time of late years that it had been proposed to confiscate the property of the Church to appease Irish discontent, and the same arguments that were now used for the disestablishment of the Irish Church would ultimately be applied to the Church of England. The action of the so-called Liberal party would prove this position. The hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Coleridge) had lately declared that there could be no such thing as a principle of Establishment. Again, the meeting at which a noble Earl, at one time Leader of the Liberal party, now the follower of the right hon. Gentleman, did penance in a moral white sheet and with a moral candle in his hand, and the meeting at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, crowded with persons, who did not care about the Irish Church, but went to see the Member for Birmingham as they would have gone to see Garibaldi, the late King Theodore, or the Pope of Rome, had any of those worthies mounted the rostrum, showed that the destruction of Establishments was the end sought to be attained. The object of the meeting at the Tabernacle was especially to declare hostility to the Church of England, and to the same effect was the letter from Mr. Spurgeon read on that occasion, and applauded to the echo by the audience. It was fair to admit that a section of the so-called Liberal party denied these conclusions. He had observed that at the meeting which was recently held in Willis's Rooms to present a testimonial to a right hon. Gentleman, the latter stated that he was an attached member of the Church of England, and that nothing would ever induce him to part with any of the property belonging to it; and he (Mr. Bentinck) had no doubt there were many others on the same side who entertained similar sentiments. But if in their hearts they were true Conservatives, how could they vote for these Resolu tions? Nay, more, how could they place confidence in the right hon. Gentleman as a Leader? Was there a single question on which the right hon. Gentleman had not changed his opinions? He very well remembered the contest at Oxford in 1852,

when the right hon. Gentleman first joined | tional education, and called to mind what the Ministry of Lord Aberdeen. He had had been the language used by the right always thought that the right hon. Gen- hon. Gentleman in reference to both these leman would come to his present condition points. He would quote for the benefit of of opinion, and, although a Cambridge man Roman Catholic Members the last opinion himself, he had subscribed a small sum in which the right hon. Gentleman had 1852 to assist in displacing him from the uttered in the House with reference to representation of Oxford University. At the temporal power of the Popethat period the hon. Baronets, the Members for Oxford University and North Devon, were the right hon. Gentleman's chief supporters, but as time went on the right hon. Gentleman forced his old friends to leave him one by one, till at last he was defeated. He then hastened to South Lancashire, where he announced to the electors that he stood before them " un

muzzled," by which expression he intimated that if they would return him, he would bring all the artillery of his unrivalled talents to bear against his former friends. He (Mr. Bentinck) considered, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman had thus fully justified the opposition against him at Oxford. It was clear from the letter addressed by the right hon. Gentleman in 1865 to a dignitary of the Church in Scotland, and lately cited and published, that the right hon. Gentleman had only recently adopted his present views with regard to the Irish Church; for the reference in that letter to the 5th Article of the Union, and to the position of the Irish hierarchy was conclusive that "disestablishment had not then entered his mind." The right hon. Gentleman's mode of escape from his difficulty was curious. He said, "That was my idea at the time, but I have abandoned it." The right hon. Gentleman would remind the House of Touchstone, in As You Like It, who, after explaining the "retort courteous, the " quip modest," and so forth, showed how the "lie direct" might always be avoided with an "if"-so the right hon. Gentleman always avoided a position he had formerly taken by saying, "That was my idea, but I have abandoned it;" and if this Resolution was agreed to, he might use the same phrase next year against the protection of vested rights and personal property, which he now disclaimed any intention of attacking. The support of the thirty Roman Catholic Members, probably, gave the right hon. Gentleman his majority on the eve of the Recess; but he was at a loss to understand that support when he remembered that the two cardinal points of the Roman Catholic policy all over Europe were the maintenance of the temporal power of the Pope and religious denomina

[ocr errors]

"The doctrine upon which the Papal Sovereignty is supported is so intolerable that the Roman or Italian who could acquiesce in it would be nothing but a worm fit to be trampled under foot." And after referring to the doctrine of M. Montalembert, that every one of the interest in the maintenance of the Papal 200,000,000 Roman Catholics has a vested Sovereignty, the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to say—

of the Church have not so much hope left as this, "Therefore the people who inhabit the States that if the Pope and the Cardinals are favourable to them, they may have some chance of relief. No! every Roman Catholic in the world is to presume to deal with their feelings and destinies and to assert a political right to dominion over them. This appears to me a doctrine more monstrous than that upon which the laws of Draco were founded.”

66

[ocr errors]

He (Mr. Bentinck) last week read this passage to a distinguished prelate of the French Church, and asked what he thought of it. The prelate said, Very bad indeed." He then asked, "Can your Lordship believe that your co-religionists are at this moment fighting under the banner of the Gentleman who made that speech?" The prelate replied, "I could not believe it; it is very wrong indeed; they ought to be good Conservatives.' And so they ought. But the right hon. Gentleman did not stop there; when General Garibaldi visited this country the right hon. Gentleman was his humble servant. Now, General Garibaldi was admitted on all hands to be, not only the determined enemy of the Pope, but also the type of anti-Christianity; indeed, he did not believe it was on record that the General while in this country visited any place of worship. The right hon. Gentleman not only patronized and entertained him, but actually visited him on one occasion at nine o'clock in the morning in order to induce him to leave this country. [Cries of" Question!"] That fairly applied to the question, which was how Roman Catholic Members, when the cardinal points of Catholic policy all over the world were to maintain the temporal power of the Pope and to keep up Establishments, could follow the Leadership of the right hon. Gentleman, who was so

« 上一页继续 »