and the nearest church in which service was performed, was probably at a great distance. Two parishes which contained, the one eight thousand acres, and the other between four and five thousand, had only one church each. In the latter, the only church to which the Protestant parishioners could resort, was a chapel which had been built by a private nobleman, for the convenience of his own family; and, in another, you might ride twenty-two miles without seeing a church at all. It was, he said, a scandalous thing that there should be such a want both of churches and clergymen in a country where Protestantism was the established religion; and his only object was, to prevent, by supplying both, the extinction of that religion throughout the province; for the Catholics, on their side, were most active and exemplary in remedying similar deficiencies.

Lord Harrowby, and the Bishop of Leighlin, answered, that all the information, which such a committee might acquire, was already contained in the voluminous mass of evidence on the subject collected last session by the Lords' committee to inquire into the state of Ireland. There could be no doubt that unions existed, frequently to an inconvenient extent. They had been made, some by the episcopacy, some by acts of Council, over which the diocesan had no control, and some existed by prescription; but in many cases the union had been a matter of imperative necessity. The number of acres in a parish formed no criterion by which the House could be guided the important element was the extent of the population. In some cases the parishes were very extensive, and the population could not pay the expenses of the

church. There was one instance of a parish which contained four churches; and to the curates of these churches, the rector paid more than he actually derived from the whole parish. As the returns on

the table of the House shewed all the unions of parishes that existed in Ireland, and the authority by which they had been made, the motion was unnecessary. The motion was withdrawn.

The want of churches, which it was the object of this motion to supply, was intimately connected with the administration of the fund formed of the first-fruits of all ecclesiastical benefices. These revenues, being the first year's income of every benefice, had been originally payable to the Pope. On the Reformation they were vested in the Crown; and the building of churches was one of the purposes to which they had been appropriated by an act of Queen Anne. Sir John Newport brought the management of this fund, and the inequalities and insufficiencies of the system according to which the contributions of the clergy to it were regulated, under the notice of the House of Commons by a series of resolutions declaratory of its nature and history, and by a motion for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into its condition and administration. The reasons by which he justified his motion were, that the first-fruits, where they were paid at all, continued to be paid upon the rate of valuation, for which there was no authority in the law, and that thus by far the greater portion of a fund which the Crown had sacrificed, and the legislature had set apart for public purposes, was allowed to remain in the pockets of the clergy, while new burdens were laid upon

parishioners to effect those very objects for which the fund had been created. It was true, he said, that the English act of Queen Anne provided, that the valuation should remain in after years as it then was, but the Irish act contained no similar provision, and the omission must be considered as having been' intentional, especially as a great proportion of church land in Ireland had not at that time been valued at all. The difference, likewise, between the sums paid in the two countries, proved that it could never have been intended to apply the same rule to both. For seven years, ending in 1824, the archbishops and bishops of Ireland had contributed no more than 910l.; whilst England had contributed 5,419l.to the First-fruits' fund, and for tenths, 8,851., making a total of 14,270l. The see of Canterbury paid 2,6807., while the see of Clogher, the value of which was, at least, 10,000l., contributed only 350l. The operation of the tithe-composition act had proved the inequality still more completely. In the diocese of Cloyne, ninety-five livings, which were all that were valued, were estimated at 2587. 12s. Out of these ninety-five, there had been a composition of tithes in twentyfive only, and the amount of that composition was 10,580l. Surely it was improper to go forward any further in a system so evidently unfair While this fund was permitted to be so unproductive, no less than 500,000l. or 600,000l. of the public money had been voted by Parliament, for the very objects to which the first-fruits were intended to be appropriated; and annual levies were raised upon the peasantry to build churches -a work which ought to be defrayed out of the proceeds of the fund. It VOL. LXVIII.

could not fail to appear monstrous, that 700,000 Irish acres, making nearly 1,000,000 English acres, attached to church benefices in Ireland, should yield so little towards the purposes for which they were destined.

Mr. Goulburn, and Mr. Dawson, opposed the motion, as being, in reality, a covert, and most dangerous, attack upon the property of the Irish church, and, through it, upon the property, not only of the church of England, but of all bodies in the state; and as being derived from a fallacious interpretation of the law, warranted neither by history, nor authority, nor expediency. No justification of the larger appropriation of ecclesiastical funds now proposed could be derived from the practice of the Popes, in whose usurpations the first-fruits originated; for the Pope had never presumed to ask more than half the income, and that very seldom ; and even that had always been considered a grievous imposition. Neither could any assistance be derived from the statute 28th Henry 8th. That statute merely went to transfer the first-fruits to the Crown: but an act passed two years before had laid it down as a principle, that the annates were to be compounded for; and if the Pope would not take a reasonable sum, he was to be forced to do so. There was nothing in these acts to warrant the notion that it was intended to make a new valuation for the purpose of raising the rate, or imposing the necessity of frequent revaluations. There had been altogether, since the time of the Reformation, only four valuations. The first was in the reign of Henry 8th, and then only a few of the livings were valued. In the reign of James 1st, there was a second valuation, confined, however, to those livings

[K]

which had not been previously valued; and in the reigns of Charles 1st and Charles 2nd, there were subsequent valuations of those livings which had not been previously taken into account. On these latter valuations, it was distinctly enjoined that the livings should not be estimated at their extreme value, but rather by such a rule as would be equitable in reference to the preceding valuations; and it would now be hard indeed if the legislature were to decide, that those livings should be again valued, and made liable for charges for the building and repairing of churches. They could never assent to the principle that the clergy ought to build and repair their own churches, as if churches were for the benefit of the clergy alone, or join in a measure which would involve the clergy in difficulties and distress at the very entrance of their benefices, and keep them paupers ever after. The motion was rejected by a majority of 48 to 21.

Sir John Newport was more successful in endeavouring to institute an inquiry into the abuses which were alleged to exist in the administration of the parochial rates levied in Ireland for the religious service of the protestant establishment. In the preceding session he had introduced a bill for the remedying of these abuses, and the bill had passed the Commons; but, in the House of Lords it had been deprived, he said, of its most remedial clause, which gave any parishioner, who might feel aggrieved by the amount, the inequality, or the application of the rate, an easy and expeditious mode of relief, by appealing to the next quarter sessions. The measures proposed by that bill he now embodied in a series of resolutions

which stated the evils complained of, and pledged the House to adopt measures for their removal. It should never, he said, be forgotten that the great majority of the persons who paid such rates were Catholics, and that, being so, they could not legally interfere in the management of them. The money raised by them was not only squandered on purposes not warranted by law, but salaries were created and augmented in direct violation of positive enactments. The law provided that the salary of the parish-clerk should not exceed 101. ; yet in two-thirds of all the parishes of Ireland, it was double, and triple that amount; and, in one instance, 4301. had been levied to build a house for that officer and the sexton. Such charges as these were generally followed up by others equally extravagant for organs, and a host of organists and attendants on organists, all for the protestant church, and all paid, in a great measure, by the Catholic peasantry. In Dublin, a vestry had voted to the parish curate a piece of plate worth 100 guineas, and directed that a levy of that sum should be made. Why call on the Catholic parishioners to pay 100 guineas to purchase a piece of plate for the Protestant curate? In the same parish there were such charges as the following:-the salary of the parish-clerk, 50 guineas-the vestry-clerk, 50 guineas; and the salary of the organist had, in ten years, amounted to 8401. The bellows-blower was paid from 10 to 15 guineas a-year; then came the sextons, sextonesses, maid servants, and a crowd of similar claimants, with salaries of 50 guineas a-year. In a parish in Cork an ingenious mode of increasing the salary of the clerk had

been adopted; for he received an additional salary for singing anthems he was paid 20 guineas for teaching the boys to sing, and 20 for instructing the girls, so that the whole amount came, in some years, to 120, and in others, to 143 guineas. A still more extraordinary theory was, that, in some parishes, in which bible societies had been established, the Catholics were subjected to a parochial rate for their support for the support and prosperity of associations confessedly directed against the interests of their own religion.

On the part of government it was admitted that there were many things connected with the levying and administration of these parochial rates which called for revision; and the motion was resisted, not so much because it was unfounded or inexpedient, as because it was unnecessary, government being about to introduce immediately, along with other measures founded on the report of the committee of last session, a bill to remedy and diminish the evils complained of. If the provisions of that bill should be reckoned in any respect defective, it would be open to the mover of the present resolutions, to propose any amendments which he might deem better suited to effect his purpose. Mr. Goulburn therefore, requested sir John Newport to withdraw his motion, and allow leave to be given to bring in the bill to which he had referred; but the latter having expressed his determination, without any wish or intention to embarrass the proceedings of ministers in the measures which they contemplated, to persevere in his resolutions, that "they might appear on the Journals, and act as a spur to the intentions of his majesty's government on the

subject," Mr. Goulburn moved an amendment, to the effect that "leave be given to bring in a bill to consolidate and amend the laws for regulating the levying and application of church-rates in Ireland." On a division, the original motion was carried. Mr. Goulburn's bill was subsequently brought in, and passed.

In the discussion upon this motion, Mr. Goulburn stated to the House, that the act of last session, to facilitate the commutation of tithes, had come into general operation, and had already more than justified the most sanguine hopes of those with whom it had originated. Last session the number of parishes in which a composition had taken place, was two-hundred and fifty-nine: a short time ago, the number was six-hundred and seventy-six, which was nearly one-fourth of the total number of parishes in Ireland. From this it would be seen, to how great an extent it had already proceeded; nor were its benefits confined to the particular parishes which had compounded, as it was found that the neighbouring ones partook, in some degree, of the advantages immediately attending its adoption. In fact, its influence was felt throughout the entire country. county of Cork, the number of cases at the quarter sessions had diminished one-half since the tithe composition act had come into operation.

In the

The measures, which had been originated or encouraged by government in Ireland, for promoting the education and moral improvement of the great mass of the people, were brought under consideration in the course of voting the Irish miscellaneous estimates (20th March.) On the motion for