Provinces.

similar particulars respecting the other provinces of Ireland are added, partly for the sake of comparison, and partly because the information is generally important.

The great majority of the schools in Ulster, whether Catholic or Presbyterian, are either purely National Schools or are partially supported by the National Board. In the National Schools, which may be called-from the class of children attending them-Presbyterian, a slight modification of the ordinary religious instruction has been conceded by the Board; the Bible itself, not merely extracts from it, being read daily in many of the schools. No children, however, whose parents object, are compelled to read the Bible; much less to submit to any catechetical instruction not approved by them.

All the Presbyterian congregations have Sunday Schools in connection with them: always one either in the church or congregational school-house, and others spread over the district; this class of schools being considered as an essential part of the Presbyterian economy.

The great superiority of the numbers of Presbyterians in the Presbyterian counties of Ulster, in relation to the number of members of the English Church, produces among the former feelings and conduct analogous to those existing among the Catholics in the other parts of Ireland, and hence tends to unite, politically, these two bodies against the Established Church. I believe, at the recent election, they were found very generally voting together against the Conservatives. Indeed, I think the feeling among the Presbyterians, and especially among the Presbyterian clergy, against the English Church, is almost as strong as that of the Catholics. They speak of the fine churches, the large stipends, and small congregations of the Establishment, and especially of the system of tithes, much in the same spirit as they are spoken of elsewhere by the Catholics. They seem to regard the Regium Donum, now amounting to 75l. per annum to every Presbyterian clergyman, as a most inadequate provision, and as in no way imposing either contentment or silence on its acceptors. Not a few, however, seem very willing to forego this trifling boon, in order that they may feel

themselves altogether free from any connection with the State. It is curious, however, to observe, that while still receiving this Government allowance, the Presbyterian clergy seem to be all warm sympathisers with their Free Kirk brethen in Scotland; a piece of inconsistency which some among themselves seem rather ashamed of, and which is sharply animadverted on by the other dissenting Protestant sects in the country.

The Presbyterians of Ulster look upon themselves,, and justly, as the dominant power, both in Church and state, in that part of Ireland. They affect the spirit and bearing of orthodoxy; and regarding themselves as constituting an affiliated branch of the Church of Scotland, they repudiate the name of Dissenters. They call their places of worship Presbyterian Churches, leaving the titles of Chapel and Meeting-house to the Catholics and to the Protestants of inferior dignity. These last, however, it may be remarked by the way, constitute a large proportion of the Protestant population in many parts of Ulster; and some of them rank themselves under titles which one hardly expects to find beyond the boundary of Scotland. In a paper now before me, containing a statement of the religious profession of the students in Belfast College, I find, beside English Churchmen, Catholics, and members of the General Assembly (orthodox Presbyterians), the following designations: Non-Subscribers, Baptists, Wesleyans, Independents, Seceders, Covenanters.

The

As might be expected from their political bias, the Presbyterians, whether tenants or not, are strong advocates for Tenant-Right, and are prepared to join any sect or party that will co-operate with them in procuring its legal enactment. more sober-minded, however, go no further on this point than what seems reasonably the tenant's due, viz. compensation, in some form, for considerable improvements of an undoubted kind, which they themselves or their fathers have effected, or for which they have, with the sanction of the landlords, paid money to their predecessors. I spoke with several farmers on the subject of this Tenant-Right, and found most of them, though certainly not all, rational and sober in their views. A small farmer I met in Coleraine market told me that he and his father and grandfather had lived on the farm now occupied by him for nearly a hundred years, during which time they had, among them, not only reclaimed it from a mere bog to be a fertile soil, but had built all the houses now upon it at their own expense. He considered himself as not only liable to be removed, but as likely to be so, at any time, and believed that he was fully entitled to compensation if this should be the case. I began by reasoning with him on the ground that he and his predecessors, during the long course of time they had possessed the land, must have derived advantages, from their own improvement of the soil, sufficient to cover the outlay on the houses; but he

met this argument by the fact, that the landlord had deprived them, in a great measure, of these advantages, by increasing the rent in proportion to the improvement! The case of another farmer was harder still, as he had actually paid, out of his own pocket, a considerable sum to his predecessor on the farm for his improvements, and this with the cognisance and sanction of the landlord, who, he had good grounds for fearing, was, at this moment, meditating his removal, without compensation, in order to consolidate his property into larger farms.

These are instances of a state of things which may be said to be general in this part of the country, and which seems to sanction the claim of Tenant-Right as just and reasonable; and I believe the claim is less resisted on the score of injustice, than from the difficulty of meeting it in a way likely to be satisfactory to both parties. The landlords, generally speaking, have not the ability to pay a money compensation, even if its amount could be adjusted. The more prevalent opinion seems to be that the compensation could and should be made in the shape of a prolonged lease at a fixed and moderate rental. At any rate, it is sufficiently obvious that the question of Tenant-Right, like the other great questions of Emigration and the Church monopoly, is tending strongly to foster a spirit of dissatisfaction and a feeling of uncertainty as to the future, that is most detrimental to the good of Ireland and the happiness of its people.