hat
it should be proposed merely for what it is, and not made
subservient to any object but that for which it has been
professedly framed. Having committed the first error of employing
this resolution to drive out the Government, they then considered
themselves obliged to adopt it as an integral part of the Bill,
and accordingly they did so, with a full knowledge that by so
doing they should ensure the rejection of the Bill itself and that
Ireland would continue in the same state of anarchy and confusion,
only aggravated by the furious contests of parties here and by the
failure of all schemes of remedial legislation. Nothing can be
more certain than this, that if the state of Ireland had been
taken into consideration with the simple, straightforward view of
tranquillising the country, and that no party object had been
mixed up with it, the framers of the Tithe Bill would sedulously
have avoided introducing the appropriation clause; but during the
great battle with Peel the establishment of this principle (not
only the principle of _appropriation_, but that _no relief_ should
be afforded without its recognition) was made the condition of
Radical support and the bond of Radical connection, and having as
the result of this compact pledged the House of Commons to the
principle, they refuse to retrace their steps, and offer the House
of Lords the alternative of its recognition (knowing that they
cannot in sincerity, honour, or conscience recognise it) or that
of an irreparable injury to the Irish Church, which it is the
grand object of the Lords to uphold. But the question must not be
considered as one merely affecting the interests of the clergy of
Ireland. If that were all, there might be no such great harm in
these proceedings. Entertaining very strong (and as I think very
sound) opinions with respect to the expediency of dealing with its
revenues, and for purposes ultimately to be effected which they
cannot yet venture to avow, they might be justified, or think
themselves justified, in coping with the difficulties which
embarrass this question in the best mode that is open to them, and
deem it better that the Irish clergy should suffer the temporary
privations they undergo than that the final settlement of the
ecclesiastical question should be indefinitely postponed. But they
do not pretend to be actuated by any such considerations; their
declared object is to restore peace to Ireland, to terminate the
Tithe quarrel,