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DEBATE respecting the system of education pursued at Maynooth College, which originated in a motion for inquiry by Mr. Spooner, and was prolonged by several adjournments from week to week, occupied a good deal of the time of the House of Commons, but led to no practical result. The discussion commenced on the 11th of May, when Mr. Spooner opened his case in a long speech, which included extracts from the writings of various authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, from the text-books in use at Maynooth, and from Parliamentary speeches. The argument of the hon. Member was directed to prove, that the system pursued at Maynooth tended to create immorality, and was subversive of the principles of civil allegiance. The mass of his proofs to support these charges were taken from the text-books of the Roman Catholic teachers, and the commentaries on the canon-law by the Roman Catholic doctorsBailley, Reiffenstuel, and Thomas Aquinas. These extracts he cited, with a running commentary of his own. But he also supported his charges by materials chosen from the political events and situation of the present day. Quoting from the speeches delivered by Sir Robert Peel, to show that the policy of endowing Maynooth

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a generous one, which it was hoped and expected would be repaid by the infusion of a better feeling into the institution, and by securing a more liberal order of

the priesthood, he asked how had that generous spirit been met? and by the answers which facts gave to the question, he assumed that Maynooth would be condemned. One of the latest and most marked indications of the spirit in which the generous policy of the grant had been met, was afforded in a declaration to the Roman Catholic electors of Ireland lately issued by the Catholic Defence Association, under the signature of its Secretary, Mr. Henry Wilberforce. Speaking of Lord Derby, Mr. Wilberforce writes-" He is disappointed. When he agreed to endow Maynooth, he expected that, in consideration of this endowment, the supreme head of the Catholic Church upon earth would abandon the measures which he thought necessary for the good of the Catholic Church! He really believed, it seems, that he could bring the holy Catholic Church to abandon her own principles and duties, and that not in Ireland only, but in other countries, for the sum of 26,000l. per annum to the College of St. Patrick, Maynooth."

those allegations he said, it was their bounden duty to challenge investigation. The country would not be satisfied unless a full investigation were to take place before a Committee impartially chosen.

The Marquis of Blandford seconded the motion.

Mr. Walpole rose early in the debate to state the course which the Government proposed to take on the question. The question raised by the original motion depended on the further question, whether the grant to Maynooth had or had not answered the purpose for which it was given. The grant was first given in 1795, with the object, that as Roman Catholics had no seminaries or colleges of their own by law, and were forced to be educated abroad, where pernicious political doctrines were in vogue, thenceforth the Roman Catholics should be provided in Ireland with a well-educated and domestic priesthood. There was a pledge to maintain the grant for 20 years after the Union, but after the expiration of those years the grant was wholly voluntary. When Sir Robert Peel proposed the essential change of increasing it greatly and making it permanent, he stated his grounds. They were, first, to obtain a well-educated, loyal, and domestic priesthood; second, to provide for the instruction of the priesthood, which Roman Catholics were supposed to be too poor to give for themselves, in order that their priesthood might be bred up in a manner suitable to their holy calling and profession; and, third," to break up by generosity a formidable confederacy against the British Government and connection." These were the objects for which this grant was made and perpe

tuated. "Well, now," continued Mr. Walpole, "I ask you these questions-Has or has not, in any of these three instances, the grant answered the purposes for which it was given?" Rumour said that many of the students at Maynooth were of different orders, who were sent out abroad, and would not remain a domestic priesthood. He suspected that the character of the priesthood had changed of late years; and that, instead of forming a domestic influence and character, it had assumed an aggressive character, constituting a confederacy. "I do not say a formidable one, but still a confederacy against the British Crown and the British connection. I allude more particularly to what has taken place since Dr. Cullen came into Ireland, and was raised to the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church. Since you had Dr. Cullen over here, you have had an influence exercised which, as recent events, even those of the last year, distinctly showed, has changed the character of the education of the priesthood, so that it has not been of that domestic character the promoters of the grant intended it to be."

Mr. Walpole next referred to the Queen's Colleges lately established in Ireland-to the denunciation of those colleges by some of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and to the prohibition issued by them to the laity against sending their children to those colleges. The Romish party had since then established colleges of their own, which they had a perfect right to do, but which showed plainly their design of separating the Roman Catholics from the Protestants and of keeping the former under foreign control. Upon the last point, that the grant was a

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messenger of peace, he might appeal to all for answer. Had it broken up the formidable confederacy?" or had the system of education it established shown a tendency that way? The most ardent supporters of the grant had confessed their disappointment a disappointment the more bitter, because perhaps those means were felt to be the last foundation of hope for the beneficial results which they failed to realize. Upon the reasons thus stated, Mr. Walpole came to the conclusion that the motion was well founded. "6 I think," he said, "that the inquiry ought to be granted on the three grounds to which I have referred; for, seeing as I do (or at least as I think I do), that the conditions upon which this grant was made have not been adequately or completely fulfilled -seeing that the reasons for which it was made are no longer existing to the same extent as they were when it was made since we hear there are funds forthcoming to endow other colleges, which are opposed to the system you intended to establish and seeing that the objects which Sir R. Peel had in view, those peaceful, loyal, domestic objects, have not been accomplished as Parliament hoped they would be;-I think that the country has a right to ask, and that Parliament is bound to concede, some inquiry into this subject. (Hear, hear.") Unless I had been anticipated by the cheers of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who seemed to think that I was shrinking from the avowal of my own opinions, I was going to say that I wished my own opinions to abide the result of that inquiry; until then I did not wish, and I do not wish, to prejudge the question. The result of that inquiry may be to effect a complete altera VOL. XCIV.

tion in the grant, or to make various changes as to which it can be easily seen whether they are those which amount to a withdrawal or an abolition of the grant. From these results, I say on my own part, and on the part of the Government, we do not wish to be precluded; but we wish there should be such an inquiry as that the whole of this question may be investigated, so that the House may be in a position on some future day, when the facts are known and ascertained, to carry out the intentions of the Legislature, and to contribute as far as may be to the peace and prosperity of the United Kingdom." (Cheers.)

Mr. Monsell expressed his deep regret that Mr. Walpole had said not one word in reprobation of that tirade of abuse which had been pointed against one-third of Her Majesty's subjects. As a Roman Catholic, he did not wish to oppose the motion for inquiry.

Mr. Gladstone intended to support the motion, though differing in many points from Mr. Spooner's views. He maintained the existence of no irrevocable compact; but unless it were shown by substantial proofs that the objects and purposes of the endowment had failed, then both prudence and justice in their highest forms demanded the maintenance of the endowment; and if the endowment were withdrawn, the Parliament which withdrew it must be prepared to enter on the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland. (General cries of "Hear!") He was not speaking of what was right or wrong, or what was to be desired or deprecated. For his own part, he deprecated the serious changes which such a course would preci[H]

pitate; but he was speaking of the necessary consequences of it. At present he thought no serious case had been made out for withdraw ing the grant. The college had not existed so long that a single student had left it after the regular course of theological education; and no reasonable man could have expected that the endowment would operate by magic on the sentiments and habits of an entire generation and an entire people. He was pained at the language in which the motion was moved, and at the motion itself; but now the motion had been made, it must be considered not with reference to the expediency of making it, but in reference to public interests, and the consequences of resisting it. The mover and seconder seemed to ask only the means of establishing before the House certain charges upon which they had already made up their own minds, and that as a step towards the repeal" of the grant. Mr. Gladstone hoped Mr. Spooner would not think he was treating him with disrespect if he stated, that a Select Committee appointed on the motion of a Gentleman who expressed such views must not be entrusted to his guidance. The question was too large and important for the guidance of any individual. It was a great national question, whether you should or should not withdraw the endowment from Maynooth, and at all times to be dealt with by the Executive Government; and what he ventured to claim was, that the inquiry now proposed should likewise be conducted under the immediate superintendence and responsibility of the Executive Government. It should not be a general inquiry into the doctrines, discipline, and worship" of the Ro

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man Catholic clergy, but, as in the instance of previous inquiry by the Royal Commission issued in 1824, into the "nature and extent of the instruction afforded by the College of Maynooth for the purpose of education;" avoiding any examination into tenets except where they appeared connected with the civil duties and relations of Roman Catholics either towards the State or towards their fellow-subjects." "Nothing could be more clear on the statutes or precedents, than that when Parliament entered into this arrangement it did not intend to place the members of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland perpetually on tenter-hooks from fear of being brought into opposition with those who hold the religious tenets of the Established Church. Parliament approached this subject in a

statesmanlike spirit. It proceeded on the belief that the Roman Catholic Church, whatever it was, was a system well known to history-a system whose merits or demerits had been tested by a sufficiently long experience; so that they could say Aye' or No' on a question whether they would have relations with it or not. Proceeding in that spirit, Parliament did not condescend to accompany this boon with conditions that would have made it insufferably degrading and painful to the receivers, but they secured from the assaults of theological rivalry the doctrines and the feelings of the persons for whose benefit this endowment was intended; and in so doing they left to the present Parliament a clear pattern and rule which should direct their course."

Lord Palmerston expressed his intention of opposing the motion. The House was entering on a very dangerous course. No ground

had been made by Mr. Spooner for his motion. His details might have evoked the spectre of Dr. Duigenan to survey the scene with grim delight; but he had told them nothing of the system of education at Maynooth, nothing of what were the doctrines inculcated by the lectures there, that would defeat the purposes for which the establishment was framed: he had confined himself to the quotation of Roman Catholic tenets, which he considered at variance with the welfare of a Protestant country. That was an important question, but not one to be entertained upon an inquiry into Maynooth. And if foreign and ultramontane influences were still prevailing in Ireland-a great and ascertained evil-would they be remedied by abolishing Maynooth? which was the avowed object of the mover and seconder. Would the priests, driven abroad for education, come home less imbued with foreign and ultramontane doctrines than if you educated them at Maynooth? The motion sprung from the deep feeling out of doors, which had been unfortunately raised among the Protestant portion of the people, at what he did not shrink from characterizing as the aggressive and violent proceedings of the Church of Rome. That feeling was natural; but indulgence in this consequence of it would only inflict injury on ourselves. The motion was one of vengeance; and as a vindictive motion he thought it at variance with the sound principles of policy on which the Government and Parliament had acted on the question. On that broad ground he resisted it. If the motion went to a division, he should vote against it, and he hoped the House would resist it; but if inquiry were thought expe

dient, then he hoped the inquiry would be conducted by Commissioners appointed by Government; because it was obvious that a subject of such a delicate nature, involving questions so deeply affecting the interests of a large portion of the community, was not a subject suited to the rough handling of the Members of a Select Committee of that House.

Sir R. Inglis briefly remarked upon the opinion of his colleague Mr. Gladstone, that if the grant were withdrawn they must be prepared for a new arrangement of the ecclesiastical system of Ireland.

It was not so much the words of his right hon. Friend, as the sig nificant cheers which they had evoked, and which had again been repeated. Now, to put that language into simpler terms, did not it mean a further confiscation of the property of the Irish Church? He did not say that his right hon. Friend was to be held bound to such a confiscation as some of those who cheered him would desire; but at any rate these words must mean a continuation of that system of alteration which was begun fifteen years ago, and in which part of the Irish hierarchy was sacrificed. In reference to the motion, he thought the eve of a dissolution an inopportune time for it; but he should vote for it as a recognition of the principle of inquiry, believing that nothing further would result from the motion during the present session.

Mr. Serjeant Murphy opposed Mr. Spooner's motion, not, he said, because he resisted inquiry into the discipline and mode of education pursued at the college, or into the morals and habits of the professors and students, be