the report and the proposition were to be laid on the tables of both
houses of parliament; and the ecclesiastical commissioners, after the
expiration of six months, would be empowered to carry the proposition
into effect, if parliament should not otherwise direct.

The bill was brought in and read a first time. It contained two distinct
sets of provisions--some relating solely to the mode of collecting
tithe, and others which established a new distribution of the church
funds, so as to create a surplus to be applied to other purposes. Sir
Robert Peel gave notice on the 7th of July, that, on the motion for
committing the bill, he would move an instruction to the committee to
divide it into two bills, that he might have an opportunity of rejecting
altogether those parts of the bill which suppressed the Protestant
churches of eight hundred and sixty parishes, appropriating their
revenues to purposes not immediately in connection with the interests
of the established church, and of supporting those provisions in which
he could concur. The bill was read a second time _pro forma_ on the 13th
of July, and the motion to commit it was made on the 21st. Sir Robert
Peel moved the instruction of which he had given notice. Mr. Spring Rice
answered Sir Robert Peel. The debate was continued by adjournment on
the 22nd and 23rd of July, the leading speakers in support of the motion
being Sirs R. H. Inglis and J. Graham, Lord Stanley, and Messrs. Lefroy
and Jackson; while the ministerial side of the question was maintained
by Lords Howick, Morpeth, and J. Russell, and Messrs. Hume, Shiel, and
O'Connell. On a division ministers had a majority of three hundred and
nineteen against two hundred and eighty-two, a majority which secured
the success of the bill in the commons. It passed, in fact, without any
further opposition, the minority declining to discuss details which, in
their opinion, could not be amended except by omitting them. Ministers,
however, seem to have been convinced that Sir Robert Peel was correct
in stating that they would have no surplus, for they introduced a clause
providing that the consolidated fund should immediately begin to make
an annual payment of L50,000, for the purposes of general education in
Ireland, on the faith of the anticipated surplus, from which it was to
be repaid.

The bill passed the commons on the 12th of August, and the second
reading took place in the house of lords on the 20th. No opposition was