POLITICS AND THE IRISH CHURCH.
In the General Election for 1865 Mr. Gladstone lost his seat for the
University of Oxford. For years it was evident that his advancing views
were gradually drifting him from the Oxford constituents, and when an Act
was passed to enable country clergymen and non-resident M.A.'s--by means
of voting papers--to swamp the real Oxford constituency, Mr. Gladstone's
seat was gone, and his opponent, Mr. Hardy, triumphed. The battle was
bravely fought, and the blow was severely felt by Mr. Gladstone and his
friends. In his farewell address Mr. Gladstone said: 'After an arduous
connection of seven years, now I bid you farewell. My earnest purpose to
serve you--my many faults and shortcomings--the incidents of the
political relationship between myself and the University established in
1847, so often questioned in vain, and now at length finally dissolved--I
leave to the judgment of the future. It is an imperative duty, and one
alone which induces me to trouble you with these few parting words--the
duty of expressing my profound and lasting gratitude for indulgence as
generous, and for support as warm and enthusiastic in itself, and as
honourable from the character and distinctions of those who have given
it, as has, in my belief, ever been given by any constituency to any
representative.'
'The salient figure,' writes Sir Richard Temple, 'was the impressive
personality of Mr. Gladstone himself, who was quite the figure-head in
this Parliament. Naturally he was no longer the handsome man with the
beautiful voice who had been wont to charm a listening senate. But still
his attitude was noble, picturesque, and when under excitement he was
grandly leonine. Advanced age had left its trace on him outwardly, and
had impaired his matchless powers of elocution. The once resonant voice
often would become husky, and at times almost inaudible, so that his
voice rose and fell with a cadence like the wind. But his persuasiveness
for many minds remained in its highest degree. His impassioned gesture
seemed to be quieter; it could not conceivably have been finer than it
was in those days. When excited in speech, he would sweep his arm round
like the play of a scimitar, and yet with a movement both graceful and
appropriate. His hands, too, were most impressive, and by their motion
or action helped him to enforce his arguments. Above all, there was the
play of features on the careworn countenance. Evidently he was in the
highest sense of the term one of Nature's orators.' The quality of his
speeches was not quite what it had once been in all respects. The
passion, the glow, the sympathy, the magnetism remained as of yore.
At the Oxford election Dr. Pusey wrote to a friend: 'You are naturally
rejoicing over the defeat of Mr. Gladstone, which I mourn. Some of those
who concurred in that election or stood aloof will, I fear, mourn
hereafter because they were the cause of that rejection. The grounds
alleged against Mr. Gladstone bore at the utmost upon the Establishment.
The Establishment might perish and the Church might come forth the purer.
If the Church were corrupted the Establishment would become a curse in
proportion to its influence. As that conflict will thicken, Oxford will,
I think, learn to regret her rude severance from one so loyal to the
Church, to the faith, and to God.'
Speaking in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester during the South Lancashire
election, Mr. Gladstone said: 'After an anxious struggle of eighteen
years, during which the unbounded devotion and indulgence of my friends
have maintained me in the arduous position of representative of the
University of Oxford, I have been driven from that position; but do not
let me come among you under false colours or with a false pretence. I
have loved the University of Oxford with a deep and passionate love, and
as long as I live that attachment will continue. If my affection is of
the smallest advantage to that great, that noble, that ancient
institution, that advantage, such as it is--and it is most
insignificant--that attachment Oxford will possess as long as I breathe.
But don't mistake the issue which has been raised. The University has at
length, after eighteen years of self-denial, been drawn by what I might
call the overweening exercise of power into the vortex of mere party
politics. Well, you will readily understand why, as long as I had a hope
that the zeal and kindness of my friends might keep me in my place, it
was not possible for me to abandon them. Could they have returned me by
but a majority of one, painful as it is to a man at my time of life, and
feeling the weight of public cares, to be incessantly struggling for his
seat, nothing could have induced me to quit the University to which I had
so long devoted my best care and attachment. But by no act of mine I am
free to come among you. And having thus been set free, I need hardly
tell you that it is with joy, with thankfulness and enthusiasm that I
now, at the eleventh hour, make my appeal to the heart and mind of South
Lancashire, and ask you to pronounce upon that appeal.'
Mr. Gladstone then described what had been done by himself and party,
commencing with the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, dwelling on the
reformation of the Poor Law, the reformation of the tariffs, the
abolition of the Corn Laws, the abolition of the Navigation Laws, the
conclusion of the French Treaty, the removal of laws which have relieved
Dissenters from stigma and almost ignominy, adding: 'I can truly say that
there is no period of my life during which my conscience is so clear, and
renders me so good an answer, as those years in which I have co-operated
in the promotion of Liberal measures. Because they are Liberal they are
the true measures, and indicate the true policy by which the country is
made strong and its institutions preserved.'
In a speech delivered the same evening at the amphitheatre at Liverpool,
Mr. Gladstone continued: 'I am, if possible, more firmly attached to the
institutions of my country than when a boy I wandered among the
sand-hills of Seaforth. But experience has brought its lessons. I have
learned that there is wisdom in a policy of trust, and folly in a policy
of mistrust. I have observed the effect which has been produced by
Liberal legislation; and if we are told that the policy of the country is
in the best and broadest sense Conservative, honesty compels me to admit
that that result has been brought about by Liberal legislation.'
About this time the Duke of Newcastle died, leaving Mr. Gladstone a
trustee of his son's estate. 'In this capacity,' writes Mr. G. W. E.
Russell, 'the Chancellor of the Exchequer applied himself with
characteristic thoroughness to the duties pertaining to the management of
a rural property, and acquired in the superintendence of the woodlands of
Chester that practical knowledge of woodcraft which has since afforded
him such constant interest and occupation.'
The new Parliament was opened on February 6, 1866, the Queen appearing at
the ceremony for the first time since her widowhood. In offering his
services to Earl Russell, after the death of Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone
wrote: 'I am sore with conflicts about the public expenditure, which I
feel that other men would have escaped, or conducted more gently and less
fretfully. I am quite willing to retire.'
As one of the Ministers who engaged in the Crimean War, Mr. Gladstone had
to leave office, Lord Derby being unable to form a Ministry, as Mr.
Gladstone and the Peelites would not join him. Lord Palmerston became
Premier, and Mr. Gladstone returned to office as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, but resigned three weeks afterwards, on the ground that the
Government assented to Mr. Roebuck's motion for a committee to inquire
into the conduct of the war. Twenty years after Mr. Gladstone contended:
'The design of the Crimean War was in its groundwork the vindication of
European law against an unprovoked aggression. It sought, therefore, to
maintain intact the condition of the menaced party against the aggressor;
or, in other words, to defend against Russia the integrity and
independence of the Ottoman Empire.' This resignation took place in
February, 1855, and Mr. Gladstone's position in consequence became very
isolated. According to his subsequent statement, he was driven from
office. His sympathies, he owns, were with the Conservatives, his
opinions with the Liberals.
The Bishop of Oxford writes of Gladstone as in the highest sense of the
term 'Liberal'--'detested by the aristocracy for his succession duty, the
most truly Conservative measure passed in my recollection.' Yet Mr.
Gladstone was still as eager as ever in Church matters. Archdeacon
Denison had been prosecuted for teaching the doctrine of the Real
Presence, and was condemned by Dr. Lushington, acting as assessor to
Archbishop Sumner. Gladstone wrote: 'Whatever comes of it, two things
are pretty clear: The first, that not only with the executive
authorities, but in the sacred halls of justice, there are now two
measures, and not one, in use--the straight one, for those supposed to
err in believing too much; and the other for those who believe too
little. The second is, that this is another blow to the dogmatic
principle in the Established Church, the principle on which, as a Church,
it rests, and on which, as an establishment, it seems less and less
permitted to rest. No hasty judgment is pardonable in these matters; but
for the last ten or twelve years the skies have been darkening for a
storm.' Again he writes: 'The stewards of doctrine should, on the
general ground of controversy and disturbance, deliver from their
pulpits, or as they think fit, to the people the true and substantive
doctrine of the Holy Eucharist. This freely done, and without any notice
of the Archbishop or Dr. Lushington, I should think far better for the
time than any declaration.'
Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the House, introduced a Reform Bill Lord
Russell laboured at in the Cabinet, which was not very cordial in its
favour, but he was supported by Mr. Gladstone, deciding to deal only with
the question of the franchise, and leaving the question of redistribution
to a later time. The Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Gladstone on
March 12, proposed the reduction of the county franchise from 50 to 14,
and of the borough franchise from 10 to 7. Some people seemed to think
that Mr. Gladstone did not speak with his accustomed force; but that may
be accounted for by the remembrance that he had to speak to a House not
very enthusiastic in favour of Parliamentary reform. But the first
reading was carried after two nights' debate, and the second reading was
fixed for April 12. It was, however, evident that, while the
Conservative party were organized, the Liberals on their side were
divided and indifferent. They argued with some force that the Government
had brought forward only half of its scheme, and that it was impolitic
and unstatesmanlike to accept one portion of the scheme without being
acquainted with the whole. Lord Grosvenor, though sitting on the Liberal
benches, declared that he would meet the second reading by a resolution
to that effect; while Mr. Kinglake, the author of 'Eothen,' aiming at the
same end, but anxious to secure the maintenance of the Government,
announced that he should ask the House of Commons to declare that it was
not expedient to go into Committee on the Bill until the House had before
it the expected Bill for the redistribution of seats. The House,
however, passed the second reading, but by a majority so small that the
continuance of the Ministry in power was difficult. The Ministry,
however, decided to persevere, and in April introduced three additional
measures--a Redistribution Bill for England and Wales, and Reform Bills
for Scotland and Ireland. But the condition of affairs did not
improve--on the contrary, grew worse; and on June 1 Lord Dunkellin, the
eldest son of Lord Clanricarde, carried a motion against the Government,
substituting rating for rental as the basis of the borough franchise.
The Ministry resigned, and Lord John Russell as a Parliamentary leader
disappears from history.
There were people who hinted that Lord John was jealous of Mr.
Gladstone's success. Such does not seem to have been the case. In 1853
his lordship wrote to Lady John: 'Gladstone's speech was magnificent. It
rejoices me to be a party to so large a plan, and to do with a man who
seeks to benefit the country rather than to carry a majority by a
concession to fear.' Again, when the question of privilege arose on the
action of the Lords with regard to the paper duty, Lord John told the
Duke of Bedford that Mr. Gladstone's speech was 'magnificently mad.' In
1867 Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord John: 'My political relations with you
have been late in life. I moved to you, not you to me; and ever since we
have been in contact--that is to say, during the last fifteen years--my
co-operation with you has been associated all along with feelings of warm
attachment and regard. Every motion that moves me further from you is
painful to me. . . . If you do not stand without a rival, I, for one, do
not know where to look for your superior in the annals of British
legislation.' A little later on, when Mr. Gladstone brought forward the
motion which sounded the knell of the Tory Government and of the
Established Church in Ireland, Lord John presided at an enthusiastic
meeting, held in St. James's Hall, London, to support Mr. Gladstone's
policy; and when, in December, 1868, Mr. Gladstone formed his first
Administration, one of the first persons he wrote to to join him was Lord
John. Upon the refusal of the latter, on the plea of age, Mr. Gladstone
wrote: 'The snapping of ties is never pleasant, but your resolution is
probably a wise one. Perhaps it is selfish of me to think of and mention
them, rather than dwell upon those ties which inseparably associate your
name with so many great and noble passages in the history of our
country.' And again, when Mr. Gladstone had introduced his Irish Land
Act, he wrote to Lord John: 'We have had a most anxious time with regard
to the Irish Land Bill. Often do I think of a saying of yours more than
thirty years back, which struck me ineffaceably at the time. You said
the true key to an Irish debate was this: that it was not properly borne
in mind that as England is inhabited by Englishmen, and Scotland by
Scotchmen, so Ireland is inhabited by Irishmen.'
Let us return to the Reform Bill. It was evident that London was getting
excited on the subject. When the Liberals resigned in June, some ten
thousand people assembled in Trafalgar Square and passed strong
resolutions in favour of Reform. They then marched to Carlton House,
singing litanies and hymns in honour of Mr. Gladstone. As he was away,
Mrs. Gladstone and her family came out on the balcony to acknowledge the
popular tribute. At meetings all over England Mr. Gladstone was hailed
as the hero of the people. He had become 'the People's William.' On
July 13 Lord Houghton wrote to a friend on the Continent: 'The change of
Ministry has passed over very quietly. It was a real collapse, and
inevitable by human skill. Gladstone showed a fervour of conviction
which has won him the attachment of three hundred men and the horror of
the rest of the House of Commons. He will be all the better for a year
or two of opposition.' It was in the course of this debate that Mr.
Gladstone, replying to Lord R. Montagu's expression that the working
classes, if armed with the franchise, would be an invading and destroying
army, evoked a ringing cheer when, in a climax of enthusiasm, he asked:
'Are they not our own flesh and blood?'
In the autumn Mr. Gladstone, with his family, spent a short while in
Rome, where he had an interview with the Pope, which gave rise to rumours
he had formally to deny, that during that visit he had made arrangements
with the Pope to destroy the Irish Church Establishment, and that he was
a Roman Catholic in heart.
In 1867 Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the House of Commons, introduced his
celebrated Reform Bill, or, rather, Reform Resolutions. He proposed to
reduce the occupation franchise for boroughs to a 6 rating, in counties
to 20. The franchise was also to be extended to persons having 50 in the
funds or 50 in a savings bank for a year. Payment of 20 of direct taxes
would also be a title to the franchise, as would a University degree.
Votes would further be given to clergymen, ministers of religion
generally, members of the learned professions, and certificated
schoolmasters. It was proposed to disfranchise Yarmouth, Lancaster,
Reigate, and Totnes, and to take one member each from twenty-three
boroughs with less than seven thousand inhabitants. The House would have
thirty seats to dispose of, and it was proposed to allot fourteen of them
to new boroughs in the Northern and Midland districts, fifteen to
counties, and one to the London University; the second division of the
Tower Hamlets two members, and several new county divisions would have
two additional members each. The scheme would add 212,000 voters to the
boroughs, and 206,500 to the counties. Mr. Gladstone pointed out the
inconvenience of proceeding by resolution, and the Government undertook
to introduce a Bill.
In March, 1867, the Bill was introduced, much to the dissatisfaction of
Lord Cranborne, now Lord Salisbury, the Earl of Carnarvon, and General
Peel, who resigned the offices they held. But the Bill was read a second
time without a dissentient; the fight in the Committee was short and
sharp. In May Lord Houghton writes: 'I met Gladstone at breakfast. He
seemed quite awed with the diabolical wickedness of Dizzy, who, he says,
is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, and
accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism.' At this time it is
understood that there was a temporary want of harmony between Mr.
Gladstone and some of his supporters. When the Bill was read a third
time Lord Cranborne denied emphatically that it was a Conservative
triumph. The Bill, he said, had been modified at the dictation of Mr.
Gladstone, who demanded, first, the lodger franchise; secondly, the
abolition of the distinction between compounders and non-compounders;
thirdly, a provision to prevent traffic in votes; fourthly, the omission
of the taxing franchise; fifthly, the omission of the dual vote; sixthly,
the enlargement of the distribution of seats; seventhly, the reduction of
the county franchise, the omission of voting-papers, and the omission of
the educational and savings banks franchise. 'If,' continued his
lordship, 'the adoption of the principles of Mr. Bright could be
described as a triumph, then the Conservative party in the whole history
of its previous annals had won no such signal triumph before. I desire,'
continued Lord Cranbourne, 'to protest in the most earnest language I am
capable of against the political morality on which the measures of this
year have been passed. If you borrow your politics from the ethics of
the political adventurer, you may depend upon it the whole of your
political institutions will crumble beneath your feet.' In the House of
Lords Earl Derby unblushingly described it as a leap in the dark.
Shooting Niagara it was described by Carlyle. Mr. Disraeli, however,
rejoiced with exceeding joy over the event. By his own energy and faith
in himself he had attained to the highest distinction--yet still many
regarded him with distrust. In August Bishop Wilberforce writes: 'No one
can even guess at the political future. Whether a fresh election will
strengthen the Conservatives or not seems altogether doubtful. The most
wonderful thing is the rise of Disraeli.'
At this time Mr. Maurice wrote to his son: 'I am glad you have seen
Gladstone, and have been able to judge a little of what his face
indicates. It is a very expressive one--hard-worked, as you say; not,
perhaps, especially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory,
but not without promise of that. I admire him for his patient attention
to details, and for the pains which he takes to prevent himself from
being absorbed in them. He has preserved the type which I remember he
bore at the University thirty-six years ago, though it has undergone
curious developments.'
When in February, 1868, Parliament met, it was announced that Lord Derby,
owing to failing health, had resigned--that Mr. Disraeli was to be
Premier. And then came Mr. Gladstone's turn. The Liberal party, once
more united, had things all their own way. Mr. Gladstone brought in a
Bill to abolish compulsory Church rates, and that was carried. He
announced that he held the condition of the Irish Church to be
unsatisfactory. In March he moved: '1. That in the opinion of this House
it is necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to
exist as an Establishment, due regard being had for all personal
interests and to all individual rights of property. 2. That, subject to
the foregoing considerations, it is expedient to prevent the creation of
new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage, and to
confine the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to objects of
immediate necessity or involving individual rights, pending the final
decision of Parliament. 3. That an humble address be presented to Her
Majesty, humbly to pray that, with a view to the purposes aforesaid, Her
Majesty will be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of Parliament
interest in the temporalities, in archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other
ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in Ireland and in the custody
thereof.' 'I am sorry,' writes Bishop Wilberforce, 'Mr. Gladstone has
moved the attack on the Irish Church. It is altogether a bad business,
and I am afraid Gladstone has been drawn into it from the unconscious
influence of his restlessness at being out of office. I have no doubt
that his hatred to the low tone of the Irish Church has had a great deal
to do with it.'
For many years the subject had been before the public. A Royal
Commission had been appointed to deal with the question, and it had given
rise to more than one debate in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's
own adoption of the policy of Disestablishment had been made evident in a
speech delivered July, 1867, although he abstained from voting. His
relation to the question had, however, as he indicated, been practically
declared for more than twenty years. A year later, on a motion by Mr.
Maguire, 'that this House resolves itself into a Committee with the view
of taking into consideration the condition and circumstances of Ireland,'
Mr. Gladstone spoke more decidedly, declaring that, in order to the
settlement of the condition of the Irish, the Church as a State Church
must cease to exist, and in consequence of this declaration Mr. Maguire
withdrew his motion. On the first division on Mr. Gladstone's
resolutions he obtained a majority of sixty against Government.
Subsequent divisions having confirmed and increased this majority, Mr.
Disraeli announced on May 4 that he had advised Her Majesty to dissolve
Parliament in the coming autumn, in order that the opinion of the country
might be taken on the great issue put before it. Great was the
excitement everywhere, and many were the public meetings held on the
subject in all parts of England. At a meeting of Church supporters held
in St. James's Hall in May, Archbishop Longley in the chair, there were
twenty-five bishops on the platform, besides an array of peers and
M.P.'s. Archbishop Tait, who moved the first resolution, referring to a
speech of his own on the Church Rate Bill, writes to his son: 'Gladstone
fell foul of it somewhat roughly on moving his Irish Church resolutions,
but last Sunday your mother and I went to the little church in Windmill
Street which Mr. Kempe has built for the poor of St. James's, and there
found Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone taking refuge from the glare of London for a
quiet Sunday morning; and as we all walked home together, I had some most
agreeable conversation with him. I wish he was not so strangely
impetuous, for he is certainly a good Christian. . . . I almost hope
that something may be done to bring him to reason about reforming, not
destroying, the Irish Church. This, no doubt, is what the Old Whigs
really desire, if only they could get Disraeli out.' Mr. Disraeli soon
gratified--at any rate, to a certain extent--the Old Whigs. In November
the constituencies replied to the appeal made to them by Mr. Disraeli by
an almost unprecedented majority for his opponent. The national verdict
could no longer be opposed. Mr. Disraeli himself recognised the fact by
resigning office without waiting for the meeting of Parliament. When
Parliament met in February, Mr. Gladstone was Premier. Defeated in
Lancashire, he had been elected for Greenwich.
There were, of course, party cavillings when the member for Greenwich was
gazetted in August, 1873, as Chancellor of the Exchequer without vacating
his seat for the Metropolitan borough; but the polemics in the press
gradually ceased upon the subject, without materially weakening his
influence upon his pledged supporters, and the public at large hardly
found time to listen to the controversy. Trade was good, and
remunerative enterprise continued to advance by leaps and bounds--to
borrow one of Mr. Gladstone's famous phrases. On one occasion, when a
Tory member argued against a certain measure that it was not the right
time to introduce it, Mr. Bernal Osborne wittily exclaimed: 'Not the
right time, sir? We take our time from Greenwich.'
No sooner had Parliament met than the Queen, in order to smooth the
difficulties of the question, wrote to Bishop Tait, who had then become
Archbishop of Canterbury: 'The Queen has seen Mr. Gladstone, who shows
the most conciliatory disposition. He really seems to be moderate in his
views, and anxious, so far as he properly and consistently can do so, to
meet the wishes of those who would maintain the Irish Church. He at once
assured the Queen of his readiness--and, indeed, his anxiety--to meet the
Archbishop and to communicate freely with him on the subject of this most
important question; and the Queen must express her hope that the
Archbishop will meet him in the same spirit.' The Government could do
nothing that would tend to raise a suspicion of their sincerity in
proposing to disendow the Irish Church, and to withdraw all State
endowments from all religious communities in Ireland, but with these
conditions accepted, all other matters connected with the question might,
the Queen thought, thus become the subject of discussion and negotiation.
The interview, when it took place, seems to have much relieved the
Archbishop's mind, especially as Mr. Gladstone at that date had not made
public any authoritative statement of the shape which his
Disestablishment policy was to assume. The Archbishop used to say in
after-years that his position after the interview for about ten days was
the most difficult he had ever known. In addition to the necessarily
urgent correspondence of such a time, he had to grant interviews to men
of every sort and condition who came to consult, inform or interrogate
him upon the absorbing topic which was on every lip; and he had not
merely to give attention to larger comments and conjectures, and to say
something suitable in reply, but to keep entirely secret all the while
the scheme which Mr. Gladstone had unfolded to him, and even the fact
that such a communication had taken place.
At length came Monday, March 1, and Mr. Gladstone unfolded his scheme.
For some three hours and a half Mr. Gladstone occupied the attention--the
absorbed attention--of an eager House. It was one of his grandest
oratorical triumphs. Complicated details, which in other hands would
have been dry and lifeless, kept the listener spellbound. 'It was
strange,' writes the Archbishop, 'to hear Gladstone on Monday last unfold
his scheme in the House of Commons, knowing beforehand what it was all to
be, and having, indeed, had a rehearsal of it in my library.'
Mr. Gladstone's Bill was in accordance with the resolutions he had moved
when in opposition. The actual moment of Disestablishment he proposed to
postpone until January 1, 1871; but from the passing of the Act the
creation of private interests was to cease, and the property of the
Church was to pass at once into the hands of Commissioners appointed for
the purpose. All the ecclesiastical laws of the Disestablished Church
were to exist as a binding contract to regulate the internal affairs of
the Disestablished Church until such time as they should be altered by
the voluntary agency of whatever new governing body would be appointed.
The churches and burial-grounds were to become on application the
property of the Disestablished Church, and the glebe-houses as well, on
payment of the somewhat heavy existing building charges. The whole value
of the Church property was estimated at sixteen millions; of this sum,
8,500,000 would be swallowed up in the necessary compensation of various
kinds, and the remaining seven and a half millions would be applied to
the advantage of the Irish people, but not to Church purposes. Special
provision was made for incumbents and unbeneficed curates. As to the
post-Reformation grants, Mr. Gladstone fixed a dividing line at the year
1680, agreeing that all grants made from private sources subsequent to
that year should be handed over intact to the Disestablished Church. As
to the remaining seven millions and a half, it was to be devoted to the
relief 'of unavoidable calamities and suffering not provided for by the
Poor Law,' to the support of lunatic and idiot asylums, institutions for
the relief of the deaf and dumb and blind, and other kindred objects.
These details, one after another, were set forth with great clearness,
and the speech was closed with a magnificent peroration, which drew a
warm tribute of admiration even from the bitterest opponents of the Bill.
In the House of Commons the Bill was carried triumphantly, in spite of
good debating on the part of its enemies. On the second reading, the
division was 368 for, 250 against. But it was in the Lords that the
battle was chiefly fought, when the second reading was carried, after a
debate which lasted till three in the morning, by 179 against 146. Upon
a division being called, the two English Archbishops, amid a scene of
intense excitement, retired to the steps of the throne, which are
technically not within the House; Bishop Wilberforce and several
Conservative peers withdrew. Among the Conservatives who voted with the
Government were Lord Salisbury, Lord Bath, Lord Devon, Lord Carnarvon,
and Lord Nelson. The only Bishop who voted with the Government was
Bishop Thirlwall, of St. David's. Thirteen English and three Irish
Bishops voted on the other side. But in Committee the Lords tacked on
sixty-two amendments. _Punch_ had a clever cartoon on the occasion. The
Archbishop of Canterbury was represented as a gipsy nurse giving back a
changeling instead of the child that had been presented to him, saying,
'Which we've took the greatest care of 'm, ma'm,' while Mrs. the Prime
Minister replies, 'This is not _my_ child--not in the least like it.'
The Ministerialists described the Bill to be so mutilated as to be
practically useless, and the vociferous Radical cheers which greeted Mr.
Gladstone as he rose on July 15 to move that the Lords' amendments be
considered were significant of the temper of the House. Nothing could be
more uncompromising than his speech. He made no attempt to soften down
the differences; he even accentuated their gravity, as he recounted the
amendments one by one, and called upon the House to reject the
preposterous proposals of men who had shown themselves to be as ignorant
of the feelings of the country as if they had been 'living in a balloon.'
He insisted on the rejection of each and every clause which involved,
however indirectly, the proposal of concurrent endowment; he declined to
sanction the postponement of the date of Disestablishment; and he
declined to leave the disposal of the anticipated surplus to the wisdom
of a future Parliament. He consented, however, to allow a
reconsideration of the commutation terms, and he went further than some
of his supporters in agreeing to give the lump half-million in lieu of
the private endowments which had been so much discussed. His unyielding
attitude made the Lords furious. When the Peers met, after a debate of
quite unusual warmth, they resolved by a majority of 74 to agree to the
first and most important of their amendments--the authorization of the
principle of concurrent endowments. Lord Granville immediately adjourned
the House to take counsel with his colleagues. It seemed as if a
collision between the two Houses was inevitable. However, Mr. Gladstone
and Lord Cairns met, a compromise was effected, the danger of a collision
between the two Houses was avoided, and the Bill for Disestablishing and
Disendowing the Irish Church--which Mr. Gladstone had enthusiastically
and somewhat sanguinely believed to be a message of peace to
Ireland--became law. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been one of
the chief instruments in the negotiations, writes in his diary: 'We have
made the best terms we could, and, thanks to the Queen, a collision
between the Houses has been averted; but a great occasion has been poorly
used, and the Irish Church has been greatly injured without any benefits
to the Roman Catholics.'
In Ireland the scheme was met with mingled emotions. The Church party
were in despair, and their attachment to England was undoubtedly
weakened. One of the ablest of Irish patriots--Mr. John O'Neill
Daunt--wrote: 'The scheme, as set forth, is to some extent undoubtedly a
disendowment scheme, but objectionable in not going so far in that
direction as Mr. Gladstone might have done with propriety and with full
consideration for the vested interests of existing incumbents. His
capitation scheme is, in fact, a plan for re-endowment, by which several
millions of money, obtained by the sale of Church property, will be
permanently abstracted from the Irish public and appropriated to the
ecclesiastical uses of the present State Churchmen and their successors.
This is anything but equality, and cannot be accepted as a final
settlement by the Irish nation.' Again he writes: 'The Lords have passed
Mr. Gladstone's Bill, with some mutilations, to which the Commons finally
assented in a conference. The Bill is a wretched abortion--in fact, it
is such a sham as might have been expected from an English Parliament.
It pretends to disendow the State Church, which it re-endows with about
five-eighths of the Church property in a capitalized shape. . . . If
Gladstone were an honest friend of Ireland, he could have averted all
this danger by withholding the power to capitalize. To be sure, it is a
queer disendowment that sends off the parsons with five-eighths of the
money in their pockets.' Again he writes: 'On the whole, I dare say we
have a sort of qualified triumph--nothing to boast of, considering that
the result of nearly thirteen years' agitation is a measure that enables
the parsons to walk off with ten or eleven millions of our money in their
pockets, _that still exacts from us the rascally rent-charge_, and that
swindles Ireland of the amount of Irish taxes heretofore kept in the
country by Maynooth and the _Regium Donum_.'
Nor were the English Dissenters, by whose aid Mr. Gladstone had carried
the Bill, very much elated about it. Their organ, the _British Quarterly
Review_, at some length showed how Mr. Gladstone's pretended disendowment
had given back the State Church property to the disestablished clergy in
a capitalized shape. It was enough for the mob to feel that Mr.
Gladstone had put an end to the Irish State Church--that upas-tree which
had long blighted the country. Be that as it may, nothing was more
beautiful than Mr. Gladstone's peroration when he moved his resolutions.
Said he: 'There are many who think that to lay hands on the National
Church Establishment is a profane and unhallowed act. I sympathize with
it. I sympathize with it, while I think it is my duty to overcome and
suppress it. There is something in the idea of a National Establishment
of religion--of a solemn appropriation of a part of the commonwealth for
conferring upon all who are ready to receive it what we know to be an
inestimable benefit; of saving that part or portion of the inheritance
from private selfishness, in order to extract from it, if we can, pure
and unmixed advantages of the highest order for the population at large.
There is something attractive in this--so attractive that it is an image
that must always command the homage of the many. It is somewhat like the
kingly ghost in "Hamlet," of which one of the characters of Shakespeare
says:
'"We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
But it is as the air invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery."
But, sir, this is to view a religious Establishment upon one side
only--upon what I may call the ethereal side; it has likewise a side of
earth. And here I cannot do better than quote some lines written by the
present Archbishop of Dublin at a time when his genius was devoted to the
Muses. He said, speaking of mankind:
'"We who did our lineage high
Draw from beyond the starry sky,
Are yet upon the other side,
To earth and to its dust allied."
And so the Church Establishment, regarded in its theory and its aim, is
beautiful and attractive. Yet what is it but an appropriation of public
property--an appropriation of the fruits of labour and skill to certain
purposes; and unless those purposes are fulfilled, that appropriation
cannot be justified. Therefore, sir, I think we must set aside fears,
which thrust themselves upon the imagination, and act upon the sober
dictates of our judgment. I think it has been shown that the cause for
action is strong--not for precipitate action, not for action beyond our
powers, but for such action as the opportunities of the times and the
condition of Parliament, if there is a ready will, will amply and easily
admit of. If I am asked as to my expectations of the issue of this
struggle, I begin by frankly avowing that I, for one, would not have
entered into it unless I had believed that the final hour _was_ about to
sound. "Venit summa dies et ineluctabile fatum." And I hope that the
noble lord will forgive me if I say that before last Friday I thought
that the thread of the remaining life of the Irish Established Church was
short, but that since Friday last, when at half-past four o'clock in the
afternoon the noble lord stood at that table, I have regarded it as being
shorter still. The issue is not in our hands. What we had and have to
do is to consider deeply and well before we take the first step in an
engagement such as this, but, having entered into the controversy, there
and then to acquit ourselves like men, and to use every effort to remove
what still remains of the scandals and calamities in the relations that
exist between England and Ireland, and to make our best efforts, at
least, to fill up with the cement of human concord the noble fabric of
the British Empire.'
Mr. Gladstone triumphed. Mr. Disraeli contented himself with the victory
of his great rival. Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens writes that he happened to
pass near the Conservative leader in the cloisters as he muffled to
resist the outer air, and could not help asking him what he thought of
Gladstone's speech in introducing the Bill. 'Oh,' he said, 'perfectly
wonderful! Nobody but himself could have gone through such a mass of
statistics, history, and computations.' And then, after a pause: 'And so
characteristic in the finish to throw away the surplus on the other
idiots.'