ch property; and argued with regard to the
diminution in the number of bishops, that the bill did not suppress
bishoprics, but only consolidated them. The second reading of the bill
was carried by three hundred and seventeen to seventy-eight. Before
the house went into committee, Mr. Gillon moved an instruction to the
committee, that the bill should contain certain provisions for resuming
all the temporalities of the Irish church, and applying them after the
demise of the present incumbents to purposes of general utility; but
this motion was at once negatived. The reduction of the number of
bishops was strongly opposed by the committee; but the clause was
nevertheless carried. The most important discussion arose on that part
of the measure which took L3,000,000 from the church to apply it to
state purposes. Both the conservative and radical party were opposed to
this; and though there could be no doubt that ministers would be able to
carry the clause through the commons, they had ascertained that it would
certainly be rejected by the lords. On these grounds, when the house
came to that clause, Mr. Stanley moved that it should be omitted. He
remarked:--"I am well aware that a strong feeling exists against the
alienation of church property, and therefore I propose that the
sum alluded to should be paid into, the hands of the ecclesiastical
commissioners, to be applied to the same purposes as the other with
which they are entrusted." Mr. O'Connell immediately attacked government
in a strain of unmeasured reproach. Many other members also contended
that ministers, by relinquishing this cause, had degraded themselves
in the eyes of the country, and that, if the house was to have tory
measures, it ought to have them under a tory ministry. But although many
of the supporters of the ministers deserted them from this cause, yet
the omission of the clause was carried by a majority of two hundred and
eighty against one hundred and forty-eight. In the committee, also,
it was agreed that beneficed clergymen in present possession of their
livings were to be exempted from the graduated tax: it was only to
affect their successors. On the third reading of the bill, Mr. Shiel
moved the insertion in the preamble of the following words:--"That
whereas the property in the possession of the established church of
Ireland is under the control of the legislature, and is applicable to
such purposes as may be deemed most fitting for the best intere