man Catholics would throw themselves on the protection of France. Lord John Russell regretted that the question had been brought before the House. Two years ago, the House objected to a Bill on the same subject; and there ought to be very strong grounds indeed for again introducing it. Was there any class of persons to whom the ordinary laws afforded insufficient protection? if so, then, not only for them, but for all classes should greater securities be provided. Let the House see the special case made out. There were certain ladies living in communities, many of whom entered them in a spirit of sincere and deep devotion; there were others who presided over large institutions for the purpose of educating young girls; and others who visited the sick. Now, he was not asked whether he approved of these institutions; but he was asked to put special restrictions on them, and specially examine their houses, and find out who were discontented. But the only law that could prevent that state of things, would be a law forbidding the existence of convents altogether; because, if you went to release a discontented nun, you would probably find that it was not locks and manacles that detained her, but her sense of the obligation of her sacred promise. Lord John threw discredit upon the anonymous stories told respecting forcible detention; and was disposed to think that had the evil existed, the Roman Catholic gentlemen would come forward and demand a remedy.

Mr. Drummond and Mr. Whiteside spoke in favour of some measure of the kind, but thought this Bill would not effect the object aimed at.

Upon a division the motion was carried by 138 to 115.

On the 22nd of June, after the presentation of a great number of petitions for and against the Bill, Sir Robert Inglis moved the second reading. After praising the moderation of the measure, he cited evidence to show that it was necessary. He particularly urged the House to remember that the Council of Trent had recognised the probability of young women being confined in convents, and had directed the censures of the church against those guilty of confining them.

He

Mr. Phinn moved as an amendment, that it be referred to a select Committee, "to consider whether any and what regulations are necessary for the better protection of the inmates of establishments of a conventual nature, and for the prevention of the exercise of undue influence in procuring the alienation of their property." Apart from the religious difficulty, the Bill was unconstitutional in its nature. It began with a false recital, and terminated with a provision destructive of the first principle of English law, that every man's house was his castle. challenged any one to point to a case where a habeas corpus had been applied for and had failed. He traced the prevailing feeling to the proceeding of those Protestants who are playing at Roman Catholics-like the "Sisters of Mercy," at Plymouth; and again repeated his challenge respecting the writ of habeas corpus, which writ the preamble declares there are difficulties in obtaining and applying. Were the Roman Catholic gentlemen so much under the control of their priests as to allow their sisters, nieces, and cousins, to be im

mured against their will? He showed that under the Bill the individual liberties of the country would be in the hands of the Government, as the Bill gave the Commissioners the right of forcible entry into any house between eight o'clock in the morning and eight o'clock in the evening, upon "reasonable grounds" shown. If there were grievances, with respect to property, which persons who took Vows were bound by those vows to renounce, Parliament was bound to legislate; but they should first inquire. Having alleged this as a reason for the appointment of a Committee, Mr. Phinn said there were four points on which legislation would be beneficial. In the first place, it ought to be provided that these establishments should be under registration; secondly, no persons should be allowed to take the vows until they have arrived at the age of 21; thirdly, proper restriction should be placed upon their power of alienating their own property; and in the fourth place, it ought to be enacted that every person upon entering a convent should name two persons of her own family who should have access to her at proper and stated periods. He believed that if improper imprisonments had taken place, the Roman Catholic relations of the persons who had suffered would themselves have come forward to denounce and subvert such a system. (Cheers).

The amendment was seconded by Mr. Isaac Butt, who used similar arguments.

Mr. Fagan thought the amend ment as offensive as the original motion.

Mr. Napier supported the amendment, considering the Bill inade. quate to meet the case. One of

its deficiencies was, that it did not enable the inmates of convents freely to dispose of property under their control. He cited two instances of ladies who, under undue influence, had assigned their property to the members of the convent.

Lord John Russell repeated the arguments he had urged against the Bill on the previous occasion, and declared it would establish a general tyranny. Differing from Mr. Phinn, however, in this, he contended that if the Bill raised an alarm in conventual establishments, the proposed inquiry would only increase it. "The general policy of the law with respect to the disposition of property may be a fit subject for legislation, but don't restrict it to convents." The case cited by Mr. Napier showed that justice could be obtained in the ordinary courts.

Mr. G. H. Moore denounced the measure in very free language, Mr. Henchy reproved Mr. Moore. but opposed the Bill. Mr. Roundell Palmer supported the amendment. He thought some measure for the regulation of convents necessary. Sir George Grey spoke against both the Bill and amendment. Sir John Pakington, speaking for a great number of gentlemen on the opposition side, announced his intention to vote against the second reading, in order to vote for the amendment. The House had become clamorous for a division, and the debate had been continued for some time amidst great noise and confusion. Mr. Chambers having replied, upon a division there appeared for the second reading 178, against it 207. But as it was six o'clock no division upon Mr. Phinn's amendment was taken.

Next day, the 23rd, Mr. Phinn moved that the debate be further adjourned until the 20th of July. After a brief debate upon an amendment of Mr. G. H. Moore, that the debate be adjourned to that day six months, which was rejected by 85 to 35, the debate was postponed to the 20th of July; on that day the Speaker explained the state of the question, and the debate upon Mr. Phinn's amendment was resumed.

Mr. John Ball and Mr. Edward Ball opposed the amendment; the former, on the ground that the course proposed was "unnecessary, unprecedented, and dangerous to all classes in the country;" the latter, because conventual establishments are most useful charities, and the proposition would infringe the principle of religious liberty. On the other hand, Mr. Whiteside and Mr. Henry Drummond supported the amendment. It was necessary to take measures to protect ladies in convents, as we protected prisoners and lunatics; and to prevent the alienation of property without their willing con

sent.

It was also necessary to resist the pretensions of the Roman Catholic priesthood, who could not be loyal to a Protestant monarch, or share with Protestant freemen in the conduct of a Protestant Government.

Mr. Cornelius O'Brien and Mr. J. D. Fitzgerald opposed, while Sir John Tyrrell supported the amendment.

On the motion of Lord Palmerston, the debate was adjourned (at the instance of Mr. Newdegate) until the 10th of August, when the order for the adjourned debate was discharged.

On the 31st of May, Mr. George Henry Moore moved for a Select

Committee to inquire into the ecclesiastical revenues of Ireland, with the view of ascertaining how far they are made applicable to the benefit of the Irish people. He observed that this was no new question, and that it involved a great imperial danger in its influence upon the loyalty of the Irish people, and in the manner it affected their position towards the law.

The cause of that state of things was to be found in the religious policy of England towards Ireland. That policy had been condemned by all authorities among English statesmen. By Lord John Russell, Mr. Disraeli, Lord Campbell, Lord Brougham, and Mr. Macaulay. Were not Irish members warranted by such testimonies in calling for inquiry into the operation of an institution which the present Chief Justice of England had declared to be one of the most mischievous in existence? He maintained that the Church revenues were a fund set apart by public authority for a public purpose, and not a tax paid by the Protestant owners of land, or by the people, to a minority. Those revenues were set apart for the education of the people and the maintenance of religion, and they ought not to be diverted from their original purposes. The proportion of Catholics to Protestants was still as five to one; and yet revenues which, by proper management, might be made to yield a million a year, were given to the minority. But the policy of England was even more evil in principle than destructive in practice; for it contained the evils both of the voluntary and the endowment principles-endowing the religion of the rich, and handing over the religion of the poor to the volun

tary principle. Mr. Gladstone had defended the establishment in Ireland on the ground that Ireland was an integral portion of the British empire, and that Protestantism was the religion of the great majority of the people; but if this were a sound argument, why not pay for this Imperial Church out of the Imperial revenue? The case of Scotland, too, which was also an integral part of the United Kingdom, but where the Episcopal Church was not, however, made the established religion, entirely destroyed the force of such an argument. Then it was argued that the Act of Union must be maintained in all its integrity; and that the establishment is part of the Act of Union; but if both parties agreed to alter that Act, he did not see that there could be any objection to that course. It

was said that the Irish Reformation Society had made converts; was it true, then, that the establishment, with from 500,000l. to 1,000,000l. a year, had failed to do what the subscriptions of a few thousands had effected? He wished "to give Protestantism fair play, in order that it might meet its great adversary before a free people; and then God defend the right." (Cheers).

Mr. O'Connell seconded the motion with pain, as it was rash and imprudent to approach the question at present. Such motions, he said, damage the cause they are intended to serve.

Sir John Young characterised the motion as one really for the total destruction of the Established Church in Ireland, which a Roman Catholic might be expected con sistently to advocate but in attributing all the evils of Ireland to her Church establishment, Mr.

Moore had overlooked her bad commercial

system and other agencies to which those evils were attributable. If, in the opinion of Parliament, Protestantism should be the established religion of Ireland, and if the parochial system was to exist, then the revenues of the Irish Church were not greater than were required for an adequate maintenance of its clergy. Inquiry into the revenues was superfluous, if the real aim was to get rid of the Church altogether. Feeling that the Irish Church had been greatly reformed, and that most of the abuses complained of-pluralities and non-residence-no longer existed, he thought that if the House assented to this motion, public opinion would receive a great shock, and a belief be induced that no faith would be placed in solemn contracts and in the security of property.

Mr. Murrough and Mr. Pollard Urquhart supported the motion.

Sir Robert Inglis said he did not consider the object of the motion to be the gratification of abstract curiosity, but as the speeches in support of it disclosed, the overthrow of the established Church in Ireland; and this, notwithstanding its existence, was guarded by the act of Union and by the oaths of the Members of that House, and it was an integral part of the institutions of the whole empire.

Mr. Gardner was opposed to establishments on principle, and believed that nothing would be worse than the existing state of things in Ireland; he therefore supported the motion, though he should have preferred that it should have come from another quarter.

Mr. Newdegate denounced the motion as an organised attack upon

Mr. J. Phillimore said the simple question was, whether the Irish Church, as at present constituted, fulfilled the high and important function of administering to the spiritual wants of the Irish people. The result of his inquiries led him to believe that the source of animosities in Ireland was to be found in religious discord and religious inequality.

Mr. R. Moore resisted the motion, and contended that the revenues of the Irish Church were barely sufficient for the spiritual wants of the people.

Mr. Drummond looked upon the question as one of political justice, and not of religion. He thought the time had arrived when it should be decided whether the Irish Church was such as the Irish people ought to be satisfied with.

Mr. Maguire quoted various returns to show the necessity for inquiry, which he said was the only object of the motion.

Mr. Whiteside said, that coming as this motion did from one who had openly advocated the selling the whole property of the church by auction and vesting the proceeds in trustees, and looking at the speeches of its supporters, it would not be doubted that its real purpose was not reform, or even moderate spoliation, but legislative annihilation. He contrasted this purpose with the disavowal on the part of Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, in 1826, in the oath under the Emancipation Act, which disclaimed, disavowed, and solemnly abjured any intention of subverting the present church establishment, as settled by law, in Ireland.

Protestant church had advanced. He implored the House to act on principle in this matter, and that principle should be the maintenance of Protestantism; for he believed the Papacy had two objects in view -the destruction of Parliamentary Government and of Protestantism. Mr. Lucas found it difficult and painful to speak upon this question, which ought to pass as a matter of course; it was difficult to restrain his feelings of indignation when he considered the injustice done to 5,000,000 Roman Catholics in Ireland; and it was painful to wound the feelings of Protestants in dwelling upon a case of enormous injustice. The claim submitted to the House by this motion had been mistaken and misrepresented; it was for inquiry into all ecclesiastical endowments in Ireland; it was not a question of the abolition of the Irish Church, but of justice to all classes of the community in Ireland; and inquiry was proposed in order to see how justice could be done by the establishment of perfect equality of treatment in respect to all religious classes by Act of Parliament. This motion was said to be unconstitutional; but how could they talk of a constitution in Ireland when they were discussing the monstrous iniquity of the Established Church there, and when inquiry into this despotism was refused?

Lord John Russell said, that he did not agree that the Roman Catholics were in a state of social and political degradation; that they had any social inequalities to complain of; and if Roman Catholics of former years had expressed gratitude for concessions made in