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guinary religious contentions. The blessings of the latter period were to be attributed solely to the nature of those laws, which granted toleration to all religious creeds, at the same time that they maintained a just, a reasonable, and a moderate superiority in favour of the established church. Their lordships were now called upon to put Protestants and Catholics on the same footing; and if they consented to do this, certain he was, that the consequence would be religious dissension, and not religious peace. The present system had the experience of its good results to recommend it; and he preferred it, therefore, to the experiment proposed in the present bill, or to any other that he had yet heard suggested.

Upon a division, the numbers were, Contents, present 84; proxies 46-130: Not Contents, present 113; proxies 65-178: SO that there was against the bill a majority of 48.*

List of the Majority and Minority. MAJORITY.--Present.

Duke of York

The two auxiliary measures, which followed in the train of the bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics, and were intended to facilitate its progress, require only a very brief notice.

The one was a bill for regulating the exercise of the elective franchise in Ireland; and it proceeded upon the principle of raising the qualification of a voter to a freehold of 10l. annual value. It was introduced by Mr. Littleton on the 22nd of April; and on the 26th of that month, it was read a second time, 233 voting for it, and 185 against it. Its opponents were of a very mixed description: for Mr. Brougham, Mr. Denman, and Mr. Lambton, with several others of a similar mode of thinking, resisted it as an unjustifiable disfranchisement of a vast body of the electors of Ireland, and on this question were found voting with Mr. Peel and the high Tory members; while sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Plunkett were seen in

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Aylesford

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Kenyon

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Kinnoul

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Abingdon

Lake

VISCOUNTS.

Beresford

Colchester

Combermere

Montagu
Northwick

Earl Orford

Dalhousie (Earl)

De Clifford
De La Zouch

Delamere

Dufferin

Dynevor

Falmouth

Gambier

Penshurst
Powis
Ravensworth
Redesdale
Rodney
Rolle

Saltersford (Eari
Courtoun)
Sheffield
Stanhope

Stuart (Earl Moray)

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The other auxiliary measure was, to make a public provision for the Catholic clergy. With this view, lord Francis Leveson Gower, on the 29th of April moved the following resolution:"That it is expedient that a provision should be made by law towards the maintenance of the secular Roman Catholic clergy exercising religious functions in Ireland." This resolution he prefaced by a statement of the general outline of the plan which he was to submit to the House. The number of Catholic priests in Ireland amounted, he said, to about a thousand, and that of the coadjutors or curates was nearly the same; making the whole estimate of parish priests about 2,000. He proposed to divide these into three classes, and to allot to 200 of them an annual stipend of 2001. each; to 800, a stipend of 120l.; and to 1,000, a stipend of 60l. The four archbishops were to have each 1,500l. per annum; the 22 bishops, 1,000l.; and the 300 deans, 300l. each. The total amount of ex

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pense would be about 250,000%.
The resolution was
per annum.
carried by a majority of 205 to
162: but no ulterior proceedings
were taken upon it.

The frequent discussion of the Roman Catholic question, which had been brought forward so repeatedly, that the public mind had become comparatively insensible to any lively impression with respect to it; the dissipation of old terrors and alarms by the support given to the principles of concession by men in whom the nation had great confidence; and the prevalence of certain speculative opinions concerning the origin and nature of political rights, had undoubtedly diminished both the keenness and the numbers of the opponents of Catholic equalization. In the course of the present session, however, the spirit of resistance to the Catholic claims seemed to gain strength. Though many petitions in their favour were presented, yet the petitions against them were much more numerous; and they increased in number, the longer the subject occupied the public attention; and the failure of the proposed measure was generally acceptable both in England and Scotland.

There is one remark which applies to sir Francis Burdett's bill, and indeed to every other which has been brought forward on the same subject. The reasonings of the advocates of the Catholics, if good for any thing, destroy the principle of exclusion in its full extent, and raise the Catholics to an equality with Protestants in all respects. But the details of the bill speak a very different doctrine: for they exclude the Catholics from a few offices, while they ad

mit them to all the rest. Thus the fundamental principle of exclusion is practically admitted; and then what becomes of the reasonings on that side of the question ?-If a Catholic is excluded from wearing the crown, from intermarrying with the sovereign, from being chancellor, and from being lord lieutenant of Ireland; what are the grounds upon which it is proved, that it is unjust not to admit him to fill the situation of prime minister, president of the council, lord chief justice, lord president of the court of session, or to hold any other of the higher offices of state? Do the Catholics admit the propriety and justice of a limited exclusion, such as that contained in sir Francis Burdett's bill? Or do they and their friends deem it prudent not to carry as yet their principles to their full extent, but to soothe alarm and bribe opposition into quiescence by not laying claim

to perfect equality, so that they may now gain such a vantage ground, as may hereafter render resistance to the utmost of their demands altogether unavailing. If the apparent contradiction between the principles of the advocates of the Catholics and the measures which they propose proceeds from the latter cause, the country has some reason to complain. In questions of such vast importance, policy ought to give way to the most complete frankness and honesty; measures like this ought not to be brought forward partially or carried by piece-meal: the whole extent of the required concession should be avowed openly and at once. For the legislature must walk in blindness and error, if it deliberates on a bill as a complete and final measure and decides on it in that view, when in truth the bill is merely a portion of a wider scheme.

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CHAP. IV.

Committee of the Lords appointed to inquire into the State of IrelandEvidence given before the Committee-Subdivision of Farms-Extreme Poverty of the Peasantry-Their want of Employment-Their abso lute Dependence on their Landlords-The Operation of the Tithe System in Ireland-Abuse of legal Proceedings-Distraining the growing Crops-Civil Bill Ejectment-Abuse of the Process of Custodiam and the Civil Bill Process-Miscellaneous Topics of Investigation before the Committee-Motion on the State of Ireland with respect to Religious Animosities-Misrepresentation of Lord Liverpool's Conduct-Mr. Hume's Motion against the Irish Church Establishment -State of the Irish Charter Schools.

IN

N the former session, a committee of the Lords had been appointed to inquire into the state of those districts in Ireland, which were subject to the operation of the Insurrection act.

Early in the present session a committee was appointed, upon the motion of lord Liverpool, to inquire into the state of Ireland generally; and this committee was composed of the same members as that of the preceding year, with the exception of lord Aberdeen, who was abroad, and earl Fitzwilliam, who wished to withdraw from the labours of the investigation. The duke of Devonshire and lord Fitzgibbon were substituted for these two peers.

The résult of the labours of the committee was a very brief and vague report; accompanied, however, by a most voluminous mass of evidence, which threw great light upon the condition of the general body of the Irish peasantry. It showed that they lived in the most degraded state-without property, without the possibility of acquiring property, barely

In

sustaining animal existence by a
very insufficient quantity of food
of the most wretched kind.
this state of misery they were the
absolute slaves of their landlords;
and their dependence, poverty, de-
moralization and degradation were
increased still further by the mode
in which tithes were collected, and
by the defective administration
of justice by the local tribunals.
Such were the general features of
the condition of the rural popula-
tion of the greater part of Ireland,
as delineated by the best-informed
of the witnesses. But on a topic
of so much importance, we cannot
do better than allow some of those
witnesses to speak for themselves.

The following is the language of Mr. Blackburn, an active and learned magistrate, who had merited the confidence and esteem of all parties by the firmness and prudence with which he had superintended the operation of the Insurrection act in the county of Limerick. "The population in Ireland has been, at least, in that part of Ireland to which my testi

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