ance, as it was termed. The bill would also preserve
those terms of commutation which, in the bill of last year, had been
adopted by both houses of parliament, by conferring a deduction
of thirty per cent, upon those subject to the payment of the
tithe-composition. He would not propose any contribution from the
national funds towards payment of the arrears of former years; and, on
the other hand, he would abandon all claims for repayment of the sums
which had been advanced to tithe-owners under the million act, and
which amounted to L637,000. Ministers proposed, he said, to entrust
the collection of rent-charges to the board of woods and forests for a
period of seven years, and thereafter until parliament should otherwise
determine. The bill would also contain the provisions for allowing a
revaluation of the present tithe-composition in the cases and under
the limitations specified in the bill of last year. These were the
arrangements to be enacted in regard to existing incumbents. As regarded
the future regulation of the church revenues, government felt that they
could not abandon those declarations and principles with which they
entered upon office; that they could not shake off the engagement under
which they conceived themselves to stand, of doing justice to the Irish
nation; and the terms of that virtual and most honourable compact they
conceived to be that if, in the future disposition of the revenues of
the Irish church, something superfluous for its legitimate and becoming
uses should arise, they should, after the satisfaction of all existing
interests, apply that superfluity to the religious and moral education
of the people. He felt that he might consider the principle as
established and conceded, that parliament had a right to deal with the
revenues of the church, if it should think them superfluous for church
purposes; so long as the resolution adopted by the present parliament
stood upon their books unrepealed, he had a right to think that that
principle was admitted. It was now proposed by government, he continued,
that on any future vacancy of a benefice, providing, as before,
compensation for the patronage of private individuals in possession
of the avowson, the lord-lieutenant should direct the board of
ecclesiastical commissioners, now sitting in Dublin, to submit to
the privy-council a report containing all particulars concerning such
benefice; and a committee of the privy-council would be established w