beneficial to Ireland; but these hopes, I am afraid, will prove
delusive. You hint that you have prepared a Registration bill, of which
the effect will be to extend the elective franchise. What the provisions
of that bill may be we do not know. But this we know, that the matter
is one about which it is utterly impossible for you to do anything that
shall be at once honourable to yourselves and useful to the country.
Before we see your plan, we can say with perfect confidence that it must
either destroy the last remnant of the representative system in Ireland,
or the last remnant of your own character for consistency.
About the much agitated question of land tenure you acknowledge that
you have at present nothing to propose. We are to have a report, but you
cannot tell us when.
The Irish Church, as at present constituted and endowed, you are fully
determined to uphold. On some future occasion, I hope to be able to
explain at large my views on that subject. To-night I have exhausted
my own strength, and I have exhausted also, I am afraid, the kind
indulgence of the House. I will therefore only advert very briefly to
some things which have been said about the Church in the course of the
present debate.
Several gentlemen opposite have spoken of the religious discord which is
the curse of Ireland in language which does them honour; and I am only
sorry that we are not to have their votes as well as their speeches.
But from the Treasury bench we have heard nothing but this, that the
Established Church is there, and that there it must and shall remain. As
to the speech of the noble lord the Secretary for the Colonies, really
when we hear such a pitiable defence of a great institution from a
man of such eminent abilities, what inference can we draw but that the
institution is altogether indefensible? The noble lord tells us that the
Roman Catholics, in 1757, when they were asking to be relieved from the
penal laws, and in 1792, when they were asking to be relieved from civil
disabilities, professed to be quite willing that the Established Church
should retain its endowments. What is it to us, Sir, whether they did or
not? If you can prove this Church to be a good institution, of course
it ought to be maintained. But do you mean to say that a bad institution
ought to be maintained because some people who have been many years in
their graves said that they did not complain of it? What if the Roman
Catholics of the present generation hold a different language on
this subject from the Roman Catholics of the last generation? Is this
inconsistency, which appears to shock the noble lord, anything but the
natural and inevitable progress of all reform? People who are oppressed,
and who have no hope of obtaining entire justice, beg to be relieved
from the most galling part of what they suffer. They assure the
oppressor that if he will only relax a little of his severity they shall
be quite content; and perhaps, at the time, they believe that they shall
be content. But are expressions of this sort, are mere supplications
uttered under duress, to estop every person who utters them, and all
his posterity to the end of time, from asking for entire justice? Am I
debarred from trying to recover property of which I have been robbed,
because, when the robber's pistol was at my breast, I begged him to take
everything that I had and to spare my life? The noble lord knows
well that, while the slave trade existed, the great men who exerted
themselves to put an end to that trade disclaimed all thought of
emancipating the negroes. In those days, Mr Pitt, Mr Fox, Lord
Grenville, Lord Grey, and even my dear and honoured friend of whom I can
never speak without emotion, Mr Wilberforce, always said that it was a
calumny to accuse them of intending to liberate the black population of
the sugar islands. In 1807 the present Duke of Northumberland, then
Lord Percy, in the generous enthusiasm of youth, rose to propose in
this House the abolition of slavery. Mr Wilberforce interposed, nay, I
believe, almost pulled Lord Percy down. Nevertheless in 1833 the
noble lord the Secretary for the Colonies brought in a bill to abolish
slavery. Suppose that when he resumed his seat, after making that most
eloquent speech in which he explained his plan to us, some West Indian
planter had risen, and had said that in 1792, in 1796, in 1807, all the
leading philanthropists had solemnly declared that they had no intention
of emancipating the negroes; would not the noble lord have answered that
nothing that had been said by anybody in 1792 or 1807 could bind us not
to do what was right in 1833?
This is not the only point on which the noble lord's speech is quite at
variance with his own conduct. He appeals to the fifth article of the
Treaty of Union. He says that, if we touch the revenues and privileges
of the Established Church, we shall violate that article; and to violate
an article of the Treaty of Union is, it seems, a breach of public faith
of which he cannot bear to think. But, Sir, why is the fifth article
to be held more sacred than the fourth, which fixes the number of Irish
members who are to sit in this House? The fourth article, we all
know, has been altered. And who brought in the bill which altered that
article? The noble lord himself.
Then the noble lord adverts to the oath taken by Roman Catholic members
of this House. They bind themselves, he says, not to use their power
for the purpose of injuring the Established Church. I am sorry that the
noble lord is not at this moment in the House. Had he been here I should
have made some remarks which I now refrain from making on one or two
expressions which fell from him. But, Sir, let us allow to his argument
all the weight which he can himself claim for it. What does it prove?
Not that the Established Church of Ireland is a good institution; not
that it ought to be maintained; but merely this, that, when we are about
to divide on the question whether it shall be maintained, the Roman
Catholic members ought to walk away to the library. The oath which they
have taken is nothing to me and to the other Protestant members who have
not taken it. Suppose then our Roman Catholic friends withdrawn. Suppose
that we, the six hundred and twenty or thirty Protestant members remain
in the House. Then there is an end of this argument about the oath. Will
the noble lord then be able to give us any reason for maintaining the
Church of Ireland on the present footing?
I hope, Sir, that the right honourable Baronet the first Lord of the
Treasury will not deal with this subject as his colleagues have dealt
with it. We have a right to expect that a man of his capacity, placed
at the head of government, will attempt to defend the Irish Church in
a manly and rational way. I would beg him to consider these
questions:--For what ends do Established Churches exist? Does the
Established Church of Ireland accomplish those ends or any one of those
ends? Can an Established Church which has no hold on the hearts of the
body of the people be otherwise than useless, or worse than useless? Has
the Established Church of Ireland any hold on the hearts of the body
of the people? Has it been successful in making proselytes? Has it been
what the Established Church of England has been with justice called,
what the Established Church of Scotland was once with at least equal
justice called, the poor man's Church? Has it trained the great body
of the people to virtue, consoled them in affliction, commanded their
reverence, attached them to itself and to the State? Show that these
questions can be answered in the affirmative; and you will have
made, what I am sure has never yet been made, a good defence of the
Established Church of Ireland. But it is mere mockery to bring us
quotations from forgotten speeches, and from mouldy petitions presented
to George the Second at a time when the penal laws were still in full
force.
And now, Sir, I must stop. I have said enough to justify the vote which
I shall give in favour of the motion of my noble friend. I have shown,
unless I deceive myself, that the extraordinary disorders which now
alarm us in Ireland have been produced by the fatal policy of the
Government. I have shown that the mode in which the Government is now
dealing with those disorders is far more likely to inflame than to allay
them. While this system lasts, Ireland can never be tranquil; and till
Ireland is tranquil, England can never hold her proper place among the
nations of the world. To the dignity, to the strength, to the safety of
this great country, internal peace is indispensably necessary. In every
negotiation, whether with France on the right of search, or with America
on the line of boundary, the fact that Ireland is discontented is
uppermost in the minds of the diplomatists on both sides, making the
representative of the British Crown timorous, and making his adversary
bold. And no wonder. This is indeed a great and splendid empire, well
provided with the means both of annoyance and of defence. England can do
many things which are beyond the power of any other nation in the world.
She has dictated peace to China. She rules Caffraria and Australasia.
She could again sweep from the ocean all commerce but her own. She could
again blockade every port from the Baltic to the Adriatic. She is able
to guard her vast Indian dominions against all hostility by land or
sea. But in this gigantic body there is one vulnerable spot near to the
heart. At that spot forty-six years ago a blow was aimed which narrowly
missed, and which, if it had not missed, might have been deadly. The
government and the legislature, each in its own sphere, is deeply
responsible for the continuance of a state of things which is fraught
with danger to the State. From my share of that responsibility I shall
clear myself by the vote which I am about to give; and I trust that the
number and the respectability of those in whose company I shall go into
the lobby will be such as to convince the Roman Catholics of Ireland
that they need not yet relinquish all hope of obtaining relief from the
wisdom and justice of an Imperial Parliament.
*****
DISSENTERS' CHAPELS BILL. (JUNE 6, 1844) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS ON THE 6TH OF JUNE 1844.
An attempt having been made to deprive certain dissenting congregations
of property which they had long enjoyed, on the ground that they did not
hold the same religious opinions that had been held by the purchasers
from whom they derived their title to that property, the Government of
Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill fixing a time of limitation in such
cases. The time fixed was twenty-five years.
The bill, having passed the Lords, came down to the House of Commons.
On the sixth of June 1844, the second reading was moved by the Attorney
General, Sir William Follett. Sir Robert Inglis, Member for the
University of Oxford, moved that the bill should be read a second time
that day six months: and the amendment was seconded by Mr Plumptre,
Member for Kent. Early in the debate the following Speech was made.
The second reading was carried by 307 votes to 117.
If, Sir, I should unhappily fail in preserving that tone in which the
question before us ought to be debated, it will assuredly not be for
want either of an example or of a warning. The honourable and learned
Member who moved the second reading has furnished me with a model which
I cannot too closely imitate; and from the honourable Member for Kent,
if I can learn nothing else, I may at least learn what temper and what
style I ought most carefully to avoid.
I was very desirous, Sir, to catch your eye, not because I was so
presumptuous as to hope that I should be able to add much to the
powerful and luminous argument of the honourable and learned gentleman
who has, to our great joy, again appeared among us to-night; but because
I thought it desirable that, at an early period in the debate, some
person whose seat is on this side of the House, some person strongly
opposed to the policy of the present Government, should say, what I
now say with all my heart, that this is a bill highly honourable to
the Government, a bill framed on the soundest principles, and evidently
introduced from the best and purest motives. This praise is a tribute
due to Her Majesty's Ministers; and I have great pleasure in paying it.
I have great pleasure also in bearing my testimony to the humanity, the
moderation, and the decorum with which my honourable friend the Member
for the University of Oxford has expressed his sentiments. I must
particularly applaud the resolution which he announced, and to which he
strictly adhered, of treating this question as a question of meum and
tuum, and not as a question of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. With him it is
possible to reason. But how am I to reason with the honourable Member
for Kent, who has made a speech without one fact, one argument, one
shadow of an argument, a speech made up of nothing but vituperation? I
grieve to say that the same bitterness of theological animosity which
characterised that speech may be discerned in too many of the petitions
with which, as he boasts, our table has been heaped day after day. The
honourable Member complains that those petitions have not been treated
with proper respect. Sir, they have been treated with much more respect
than they deserved. He asks why we are to suppose that the petitioners
are not competent to form a judgment on this question? My answer is,
that they have certified their incompetence under their own hands. They
have, with scarcely one exception, treated this question as a question
of divinity, though it is purely a question of property: and when I see
men treat a question of property as if it were a question of divinity, I
am certain that, however numerous they may be, their opinion is entitled
to no consideration. If the persons whom this bill is meant to relieve
are orthodox, that is no reason for our plundering anybody else in
order to enrich them. If they are heretics, that is no reason for our
plundering them in order to enrich others. I should not think myself
justified in supporting this bill, if I could not with truth declare
that, whatever sect had been in possession of these chapels, my conduct
would have been precisely the same. I have no peculiar sympathy with
Unitarians. If these people, instead of being Unitarians, had been Roman
Catholics, or Wesleyan Methodists, or General Baptists, or Particular
Baptists, or members of the Old Secession Church of Scotland, or members
of the Free Church of Scotland, I should speak as I now speak, and vote
as I now mean to vote.
Sir, the whole dispute is about the second clause of this bill. I can
hardly conceive that any gentleman will vote against the bill on account
of the error in the marginal note on the third clause. To the first
clause my honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford
said, if I understood him rightly, that he had no objection; and indeed
a man of his integrity and benevolence could hardly say less after
listening to the lucid and powerful argument of the Attorney General. It
is therefore on the second clause that the whole question turns.
The second clause, Sir, rests on a principle simple, well-known, and
most important to the welfare of all classes of the community. That
principle is this, that prescription is a good title to property, that
there ought to be a time of limitation, after which a possessor,
in whatever way his possession may have originated, must not be
dispossessed. Till very lately, Sir, I could not have imagined that,
in any assembly of reasonable, civilised, of educated men, it could be
necessary for me to stand up in defence of that principle. I should have
thought it as much a waste of the public time to make a speech on such
a subject as to make a speech against burning witches, against trying
writs of right by wager of battle, or against requiring a culprit to
prove his innocence by walking over red-hot ploughshares. But I find
that I was in error. Certain sages, lately assembled in conclave at
Exeter Hall, have done me the honour to communicate to me the fruits of
their profound meditations on the science of legislation. They have,
it seems, passed a resolution declaring that the principle, which I had
supposed that no man out of Bedlam would ever question, is an untenable
principle, and altogether unworthy of a British Parliament. They have
been pleased to add, that the present Government cannot, without gross
inconsistency, call on Parliament to pass a statute of limitation.
And why? Will the House believe it? Because the present Government has
appointed two new Vice Chancellors.
Really, Sir, I do not know whether the opponents of this bill shine
more as logicians or as jurists. Standing here as the advocate of
prescription, I ought not to forget that prescriptive right of talking
nonsense which gentlemen who stand on the platform of Exeter Hall are
undoubtedly entitled to claim. But, though I recognise the right, I
cannot but think that it may be abused, and that it has been abused on
the present occasion. One thing at least is clear, that, if Exeter Hall
be in the right, all the masters of political philosophy, all the great
legislators, all the systems of law by which men are and have been
governed in all civilised countries, from the earliest times, must be
in the wrong. How indeed can any society prosper, or even exist, without
the aid of this untenable principle, this principle unworthy of a
British legislature? This principle was found in the Athenian law. This
principle was found in the Roman law. This principle was found in the
laws of all those nations of which the jurisprudence was derived from
Rome. This principle was found in the law administered by the Parliament
of Paris; and, when that Parliament and the law which it administered
had been swept away by the revolution, this principle reappeared in
the Code Napoleon. Go westward, and you find this principle recognised
beyond the Mississippi. Go eastward, and you find it recognised beyond
the Indus, in countries which never heard the name of Justinian, in
countries to which no translation of the Pandects ever found its way.
Look into our own laws, and you will see that the principle, which is
now designated as unworthy of Parliament, has guided Parliament ever
since Parliament existed. Our first statute of limitation was enacted
at Merton, by men some of whom had borne a part in extorting the Great
Charter and the Forest Charter from King John. From that time to this
it has been the study of a succession of great lawyers and statesmen to
make the limitation more and more stringent. The Crown and the Church
indeed were long exempted from the general rule. But experience fully
proved that every such exemption was an evil; and a remedy was at last
applied. Sir George Savile, the model of English country gentlemen, was
the author of the Act which barred the claims of the Crown. That eminent
magistrate, the late Lord Tenterden, was the author of the Act which
barred the claims of the Church. Now, Sir, how is it possible to believe
that the Barons, whose seals are upon our Great Charter, would
have perfectly agreed with the great jurists who framed the Code of
Justinian, with the great jurists who framed the Code of Napoleon, with
the most learned English lawyers of the nineteenth century, and with the
Pundits of Benares, unless there had been some strong and clear reason
which necessarily led men of sense in every age and country to the same
conclusion? Nor is it difficult to see what the reason was. For it is
evident that the principle which silly and ignorant fanatics have called
untenable is essential to the institution of property, and that, if you
take away that principle, you will produce evils resembling those which
would be produced by a general confiscation. Imagine what would follow
if the maxims of Exeter Hall were introduced into Westminster Hall.
Imagine a state of things in which one of us should be liable to be sued
on a bill of exchange indorsed by his grandfather in 1760. Imagine a
man possessed of an estate and manor house which had descended to him
through ten or twelve generations of ancestors, and yet liable to be
ejected because some flaw had been detected in a deed executed three
hundred years ago, in the reign of Henry the Eighth. Why, Sir, should
we not all cry out that it would be better to live under the rule of
a Turkish Pasha than under such a system. Is it not plain that the
enforcing of an obsolete right is the inflicting of a wrong? Is it
not plain that, but for our statutes of limitation, a lawsuit would be
merely a grave, methodical robbery? I am ashamed to argue a point so
clear.