that such a fund should be different in collection
and lighter in its amount than that now raised by the system of tithes.
Lord John Russell characterised Mr. O'Connel's plan as one of direct
robbery and spoliation, which would be advantageous to none but
landowners. On a division the original motion was carried by a majority
of two hundred and nineteen against forty-two. A bill founded upon it
was then brought in; and on moving the second reading on the 2nd of May,
Mr. Littleton mentioned certain alterations which had been introduced
into the measure, evidently for the purpose of conciliating Irish
members. The principal changes were that instead of a varying rate of
deduction on account of the trouble and expense of collecting, there
should be one uniform deduction of fifteen per cent, to tithe-owners, to
be increased two and a half in cases where landlords had already taken
upon themselves the payment of compositions; and that when leases of
tithes had been made to the possessors of lands, the rent reserved on
such leases or the composition, whichever was the smaller in amount,
should be the measure of the land-tax; but the incumbent lessee was
to receive the amount of the rent, subject to a reasonable charge for
deficiency, the deficiency being made good out of the funds arising from
the deductions. But no change could conciliate the Irish members:
their opposition continued not only unrelaxed, but it even increased in
violence. No plan, indeed, would have been acceptable to them which did
not recognise the principle of despoiling the Protestant church.
The new bill, they contended, would be as inefficient to tranquillise
Ireland as its predecessors had been; and that a new insurrection act
and an additional army would be necessary. The second reading, from the
hostility of the Irish members, was not carried without long debates and
various manouvres; and even the conservative members aided in delaying
the measure. Their objection to it was not that it left too much to the
clergy, but that it took too much from them. They deemed it necessary,
however, to support ministers, in order to prevent worse measures
from being brought forward. It was their belief | that the money to
be secured by the present measure was to be applied exclusively to the
purposes of the church. This belief was somewhat shaken by Lord John
Russell, who stated that he understood the bill to be one for securing
a certain fund appropriated to relig