REJECTION OF THE IRISH TITHE QUESTION BY THE PEERS.
Ministers having thus provided for the tranquillity of Ireland, by what they considered enactments of sufficient energy and severity, now returned to their tithe bill, which, according to them, was to be the great recompense of the temporary submission to a strained power of the law. Accordingly, on the 29th of July, the order of the day was read for the house resolving itself into a committee on the tithe bill. Mr. O’Connell moved as an amendment that the house should resolve itself into a committee that day six months. He did so, he said, on the ground that it was preposterous to go into a committee on a bill containing one hundred and twenty-two clauses at that period of the session, on the ground of the demerits of the bill itself, and on the ground that it would be time enough to legislate after the report of the commission which had been issued should have been received, a regular plan arranged and submitted, with all its details, and all necessary information, to a select committee composed of men of all parties. This amendment, however, obtained only fourteen votes in its favour, though others were carried in committee, which went to alter the operation and consequences of the bill. Thus Mr. O’Connell moved an amendment, the object of which was to relieve the tithe-payer immediately to the extent of forty per cent.; and in consequence of the accommodating language and coy resistance of ministers, it was carried by a majority of eighty-two to thirty-three. Additional concessions were also made in the committee; and even Mr. Shiel remarked that Ireland ought to be grateful. Such, indeed, was the departure from the original principles and arrangements of the bill that one hundred and eleven out of one hundred and seventy-two clauses were expunged. Thus altered, the bill was read a third time, and passed on the 5th of August.
On the second reading of the bill in the lords, the peers were given to understand by Lord Melbourne that, if it was lost, government would propose no other grant to relieve the Irish clergy. He admitted, he said, that there might be reason for viewing with jealousy and distrust the quarter whence certain alterations made in the bill, subsequently to this introduction, proceeded; but, at the same time he did not think the arrangement bad for the church. The tithe for the future was to be received by the crown, and paid by the landlord, who, in return for the burden thus imposed on him, was to have a deduction of two-fifths or forty per cent, of the original composition. The incomes of the clergy, however, were not to bear the whole deduction, which was only to be twenty-two and a half per cent, on them; that is, twenty per cent, for increased security, and two and a half per cent, for the expenses of collection. The incumbents would, in fact, receive £79 10s. for every £100 without trouble, without the risk of bad debts, and without the odium which had hitherto attended the collection of tithe property. Another consequence was that the clergy would be relieved from the payment of sums already advanced to them from the treasury, as that charge would be laid on the landlord. In conclusion, he said that he thought the revision of existing compositions, made under the acts of 1823 and ‘32, was also a proper enactment. The bill underwent a complete discussion—the Conservatives seeing no security for the rights and interests of the Irish clergy in its provisions as now altered; while their opponents thought that it would be much more advantageous to the clerical body to obtain the sum proposed without risk, than to recover a smaller—if they recovered any at all—through scenes of blood and slaughter. The Earl of Ripon and the Duke of Richmond pursued a middle course—they wished the bill to go into committee in order to restore it to its original state; if unsuccessful there, they would vote against the third reading. The lords, however, were determined to reject it forthwith; and on a division the bill was thrown out by a majority of one hundred and eighty-nine against one hundred and twenty-two. By the rejection of the bill, the Irish clergy was thrown on the charity of the British public, who liberally responded to their demand: a large subscription was made to relieve their distresses.