parishioners to effect those very objects for which the fund
had been created. This motion was opposed as 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, authority, nor expediency, On a division
it was rejected by a majority of forty-eight to twenty-one. The mover,
Sir John Newport, was subsequently more successful in endeavouring to
institute an inquiry into abuses said to exist in the administration of
the parochial rates levied in Ireland for the religious service of the
Protestant establishment. He moved resolutions pledging the house to
adopt measures for their removal, and on a division the motion was
carried. Measures of greater importance were carried by government
itself, namely, for promoting the education and moral improvement of the
great mass of the Irish people. Grants for these important purposes were
voted, though not without opposition from many members, on the grounds
of the abuses and oppressions in the management of the schools in
Ireland as detailed in the report of the preceding year; and that
proselytism was made a part of the system of education pursued therein.
In these discussions government manifested no desire to perpetuate
abuses, nor any disinclination to cautious and practicable amendment.
The same spirit was carried into other departments more strictly
connected with the civil administration of Ireland. A committee on the
state of the country had presented a report in 1825, recommending the
adoption of various measures; and during this session several of those
measures were carried into effect. Thus an act was passed consolidating
the laws for the regulation and management of prisons; better
regulations were enacted for the administration of justice in towns
corporate; provision was made to remedy the inequalities of local
assessments, by introducing an uniform valuation of baronies, parishes,
and other divisions of counties; an act was passed which made provision
for a more convenient and abundant distribution of lunatic asylums; and
the law of Ireland was amended respecting the assignment and subletting
of lands and tenements, by which some check was put to that infinite
division, not of property but the use of property which had so
impoverished and degraded the Irish