IRISH TITHE QUESTION.
In the meantime ministers had been proceeding with a bill for the amendment of the tithe system in Ireland, founded on principles which should extinguish tithe altogether as a payment to be demanded in kind, and should lay the burden, directly at least, on a different class of payers. The provisions of the intended measure were explained on the 20th of February, by Mr. Littleton, the Irish secretary, in a committee of the whole house, met for the purpose of considering the portion of the king’s speech relating to this subject. Government, he said, proposed in the first place, that from and after the month of November next, composition for tithe should cease in Ireland, and in lieu thereof a land-tax should be imposed, payable to the crown, and to be collected and managed by the commissioners of woods and forests, of the same amount as the tithe-payment now exigible, and to be paid by the same parties who at present were liable. In the second place, he said, ministers proposed that this land-tax should be redeemable at the end of five years, by all who had a substantive interest in the estate. Thirdly, they proposed, he said, that so much of the land-tax as remained unredeemed on the 1st of November, 1839, should be converted into a real charge, equal to four-fifths of the land-tax, and payable by the owner of the first estate of inheritance in the land, who should be entitled to recover the whole amount over against his tenantry; these rent-charges would be redeemable or saleable for the best price to be had, not being less than the consideration for redemption of land-tax. In the fourth place, ministers proposed that the tithe-owners should be paid by warrants issued by the ecclesiastical commissioners for Ireland, and addressed to the commissioners of woods and forests: such payments to be of the amount of the compositions to which the tithe-owners might be severally entitled, subject to a deduction for the trouble, loss, and expense of collection. Finally, ministers proposed that on redemption of the land-tax or sale of rent-charges taking place, the payments by warrants were to cease; and that the redemption or purchase-money should be paid over to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, and to yield an interest of 2-1/4d. per diem. The money was to be drawn out from time to time, and invested in land, for the benefit of the tithe-owner entitled to the principal money. The great object of the measure, Mr. Littleton explained, was, if possible, to invest the produce of the land-tax and rent-charge in land, so as to give the tithe-owner £80 in land for every £100 tithe to which he had a claim. Where clergymen had already agreed to compositions, they would get tax to the same amount, redeemable on the same terms as in other cases; clergymen would, indeed, he said, be probably gainers of five per cent, by the change. Mr. Littleton concluded with moving the following resolution:—“That it is the opinion of this committee, that composition for tithes in Ireland ought to be abolished on and after the 1st day of November in the present year, in consideration of an annual land-tax to be granted to his majesty, payable by the persons who would have been liable to such composition for tithes, and of equal amount; that such tax shall be redeemable; and that out of the produce provision be made in land or money for the indemnification of the persons entitled to such composition.” The moderate members reserved their opinions until the details of the measure should be more fully before the house; but Messrs. O’Connell, O’Conner, Shiel, Grattan, and others of the same class, attacked it with unmeasured violence. The bill did not abolish tithe, and therefore it was not a bill to suit their notions. Of all the delusions which had ever been practised, they said, this was the most gross. Did ministers, they asked, think so meanly of the people of Ireland as to imagine that a change of name would be mistaken for a change of the thing, or that tithes would become less odious by being called a land-tax or an annuity? The people of Ireland objected not merely to the amount of tithes paid, but to the application of the funds thence arising: the objection to tithes was double, and now that objection would mix itself with rents. The landlords of Ireland must now look to themselves, for the principle upon which opposition to tithes had hitherto been conducted would forthwith be applied to rents: the Irish people would not regard the present measure as the smallest alleviation of their misery. Mr. O’Connell proposed that two-thirds of the existing tithes should be abolished, the remaining third being left as a quit-rent on the land; and after providing for the life-interest of present incumbents, he said, he would apply the produce to relieving the landlord from grand-jury assessments, to the support of charities, and to other public purposes. Mr. Barron proposed that the tithe levied, to which he did not object, should be restored in part to the poor, they originally having had an interest in it. Mr. Grattan proposed a third scheme: he wished parliament to recognise the liability of property in Ireland to contribute to a fund for the support of religion and charity, but he wished also 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 religious and charitable purposes; and if parliament found it was not so applied, it would be its duty to consider of a new appropriation. His own opinion was, he said, that the revenues of the church of Ireland were too large for the religious and moral instruction of the persons belonging to that church, and for the safety of the church itself. When, therefore, this property was once successfully vindicated against those who unjustly withheld it, he would be prepared to do justice to Ireland, for if ever a people had reason to complain of a grievance it was the people of Ireland, in relation to the present appropriation of tithes. These sentiments were hailed by some of the Irish members as announcing an approaching concession of all their demands, while others who thought differently complained that, if such were the intentions of government, they had been induced by a false belief to receive the bill with favour, even at the sacrifice of some of their own convictions. On a division, the second reading of the bill was carried by a majority of two hundred and fifty against fifty-four, the greater part of the minority being Irish members.
When the bill went into committee, lengthy debates ensued, and several important alterations were introduced into it from the opposition encountered. Thus the enemies of the Protestant church had loudly declaimed against the provision by which the redeemed land-tax was to be vested in land, and the land vested in the tithe-owner; and in consequence of this opposition that part of the bill which invested the revenues of the church in land, and consequently the redemption clauses were dropped. The composition was to be converted into a land-tax payable to the crown by the same parties who were now liable for the composition. The amount so collected was to be paid to the tithe-owners, subject to a deduction of three per cent. This state of things was to continue five years, at the end of which period four-fifths of the land-tax was to be converted into a rent-charge to be imposed on the owners of estates of inheritance, who should have the power of recovering it from their tenants, and all others who were primarily liable under the existing composition laws. The amount of these rent-charges was to be received by the crown, and to be paid by the crown to the tithe-owners, subject to a further reduction of two and a half per cent. for the expense of collection. Another objection to the bill had been that under the composition-acts, the tithe had been valued too high, and the payers determined to pay no tithe, and had even failed to attend the commissions by whom the composition had been struck. Effect was now given to this objection by the insertion of a provision conferring a power of appeal against the valuation of the amount of tithe-composition in certain cases and under certain restrictions. All the concessions made, however, failed to conciliate the Irish members. What was required by them was, a legislative declaration to the effect that the tithe should be diverted from Protestant religious purposes. On the 23rd of June, Mr. O’Connell moved as an instruction to the committee, “that after any funds which should be raised in Ireland in lieu of tithes had been so appropriated as to provide suitably, considering vested interests and spiritual wants, for the Protestants of the established church of Ireland, the surplus which remained should be appropriated to purposes of public utility.” This motion was seconded by Mr. Hume, and it led to another long debate, in which all the usual topics were again urged on both sides. This resolution, however, was lost by a majority of three hundred and sixty to ninety, and on the 30th of June the order of the day was moved for going into committee. This step was prefaced by the announcement of new and extensive alterations in the bill. It was now proposed to offer an inducement to the imposition of voluntary rent charges, by exacting that, in any case where the owner of the first perpetual estate in the land should be willing to subject his estate to a rent-charge in lieu of land-tax, and should declare his intention to that effect before the 1st of November, 1836, the land-tax should then cease, and his property should become liable to a rent-charge, which should be a sum equal to the interest at three and a half per cent, on the amount of the land-tax multiplied by four-fifths of the number of years’ purchase which the land might be fairly worth. Mr. Littleton said he thought that the landowners should be subject to no greater interest than three and a half per cent, on the amount of the land-tax thus determined by the proportion of years’ purchase of the land, but that the difference between the amount of the rent-charge and the amount of the land-tax should not be less than twenty per cent, or more than forty per cent, on the amount of such land-tax. The difference, he continued, between the bonus given to the landlord and the deduction made from the tithe-owner, which deduction was to remain as originally proposed, would produce a considerable deficiency in the funds accruing to the commissioners of land revenue. It was proposed at first to make up this deficiency in the first instance from the consolidated fund, and to repay it from the perpetuity purchase-fund in the hands of the ecclesiastical commissioners under the act of last session. Finally, in all cases where a rent-charge should not have been voluntarily created before the expiry of five years, a rent-charge equal to four-fifths of the land-tax would be compulsorily imposed. Mr. O’Connell taunted ministers with weak and vacillating conduct, and insisted that the bill should not go into committee till it had been printed with the new clauses. The bill, he argued, was no longer the same: it had been altered again and again; eight additional clauses not originally contained in it, had already been inserted, and now came a fresh quantity of matter. Familiar as he was with the subject, he was not sure that he understood the new alterations, and he was quite sure that nine-tenths of the members did not understand them. Messrs, Stanley and Shaw joined Mr. O’Connell in thinking that some postponement was reasonable and necessary. Mr. Stanley said that it would be more decent to give time for the great alterations in view, and the deviations from the principles formerly adopted to be deliberately considered, after the bill should be again printed and put into the hands of members. The objection to proceeding with the bill was so forcible that Mr. Stanley’s proposal was acceded to, and the committee was postponed. On the 4th of July, the house having gone into committee on another bill connected with the Irish church, Mr. Littleton explained more in detail the mode of fixing the bonus to be given to the landlords who submitted to voluntary rent-charges and the financial effects of it on the consolidated fund. He moved “that for any deficit which might arise in the sums accruing to the commissioners of woods and forests out of the land-tax or rent-charges, payable for the composition of ecclesiastical tithes in Ireland, to the payment of which the consolidated fund was pledged, that fund should be indemnified from the revenues in the hands of the ecclesiastical commissioners, and out of the perpetuity purchase-fund, placed at their disposal by the act of last session, entitled the Irish church temporalities act.” After a few words from Messrs. O’Connell and Hume, and some other members, Mr. Stanley attacked the measure and the proceedings of his former colleagues in a vehement harangue. He opposed the resolution, he said, because it was both impolitic and dishonest; because it was at variance with the great principle, which for the last three or four years it had been the object of government to abolish, namely, the final extinction of tithes in Ireland by means of redemption; and because it seemed to him to be the commencement of a new system of plunder, and that too by a system of plunder not characterised by the straightforward course which bold offenders followed, but marked with that timidity, that want of dexterity, which led to the failure of the unpractised shoplifter. He believed that government was committing great injustice, and would yet fail in its aim; that the country was against this injustice, and that Ireland after it had been perpetrated would not be more tranquil; and therefore he would take the sense of the committee on the resolution now proposed. Lord Althorp replied to Mr. Stanley, and vindicated the resolution from the charge of spoliation. He did not see, he said, how it could be spoliation to take property not from a corporation, but from a mass of different corporations, and apply it to other purposes, if, in doing this, he was giving security to the church. Mr. Hume said he believed in his conscience that ministers were afraid of their late colleague, and intimated his intention of acting with him. He moved an amendment the effect of which would be to re-enact the 147th clause of the act of last session, by substituting for the original resolution the following:—“That the surplus monies to the credit of the ecclesiastical commissioners in the perpetuity purchase-fund, to be kept by the said ecclesiastical commissioners pursuant to an act of last session of parliament, should be applicable to such purposes, for the adjustment and settlement of tithes in Ireland, as by an act of parliament of this session should be provided.” This amendment gave rise to a lengthy and sharp debate, but it was thrown out by a large majority, and the ministerial resolution was then carried by two hundred and thirty-five votes against one hundred and seventy-one. At this stage, however, the progress of the bill was arrested for a time by circumstances to which it becomes necessary to advert, those circumstances being calculated by their moral and political effects on the composition of government, and on the relations of parties, to exercise a great influence on the spirit of all subsequent measures.