A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Position of the Irish Church.

In a country of which the population was somewhat over seven millions, there was established a dominant Protestant Church, the members of which numbered 853,000 only. It had a staff of no less than four archbishops and eighteen bishops, many of them with very large incomes, and a body of clergy supported principally by tithes, exacted not only from its own members, but from the six million and a half Catholics. To make matters worse, the tithe was paid by the tenants, and, as the land was infinitely subdivided, in minute sums which rendered its forcible exaction most irksome and ridiculous. In many instances a man's tithe was a farthing, and in some cases not more than seven parts of a farthing. So vexatious and unjust a tax was certain to cause exasperation. In 1831 the collection of tithes became almost impossible; the collectors were murdered, the police who came to their rescue fired upon, cattle driven off that the tithe might not be paid, and the clergy were consequently reduced to such a miserable plight that some of them were actually brought to the verge of starvation. But in spite of the glaring anomaly of the existence of the Church at all, and of the ill-feeling and violence excited by the exaction of the tithes, neither Lord Grey nor Mr. Stanley, his Secretary for Ireland, could bring themselves to think of any wide measure of reform, so great was their dread of touching property or vested interests, or of in any way injuring the Church. In February 1832 committees were appointed to inquire into the system. They reported that the complete extinction of tithes by a commutation or charge upon the land was absolutely necessary. The Irish took this as an authorization of their proceedings; the outrages increased, and a system of terrorism was established, which precluded the possibility of bringing the assassins and rioters to justice. In June the Government had adopted a plan which in fact made matters worse. They authorized the advance of £60,000 to the Irish clergy, who were unable to collect their tithes, and took upon themselves the duty of collecting former arrears, at the same time promising that the tithe commutation should be undertaken. A Bill to this effect was passed, rendering commutation necessary for a term of twenty-one years. Other Bills providing for the redemption of the tithe were unfortunately allowed to stand over to the next session. But Government had now made itself a tithe collector, and was so inefficient in that capacity that it had subsequently to allow that of £104,000 due £12,000 only had been levied, and that with some loss of life.

Irish Tithe Composition Bill passed. Aug. 28, 1833.

In the year 1833 a new arrangement was consequently attempted. The whole amount of arrears for the last three years amounted to about a million. This sum the Government proposed should be advanced by an issue of Exchequer bills, to be repaid gradually by a general land tax. As there seemed only too much probability that the land tax would be refused with as great determination as the tithes, most people regarded this sum as a mere gift to the Irish clergy. The Government was, however, able to pass the Bill. The final settlement of the tithe question was postponed for several years; meanwhile the violence which attended the attempts at collecting the tithes were the chief cause of the necessity of the Coercion Bill.

But the tithes, though the immediate cause of the disturbances, were only a part of the whole Church system; it was the Church itself which was the primary cause of the evil, and in the measure Althorp's Irish Church Bill. Feb. 1833. for the relief which was to accompany the Bill for the repression of disturbance, the ministers addressed themselves to lessen the more glaring defects of that institution; but at the same time they were as little disposed to injure the Church as the Tories themselves, and one of the chief objects of the proposed legislation was the improvement of the position of the clergy. It was thought that while the lessening of the hierarchy and the removal of some of the anomalies exhibited by the Church would be pleasing to the Irish, the Church would itself gain strength by the proposed changes. Besides the payment of tithes, a church cess, for the support of the buildings and expenses of the services, was paid indiscriminately by members of all religions, but managed by Protestant vestries. The annates, or first-fruits of livings, had been originally employed for these purposes, but in process of time had almost disappeared; such benefices as were still subject to them were to be now freed, a graduated tax to be laid upon all livings, and with the produce the Church cess was to be extinguished. This was a direct boon to the Catholics. Another common complaint was the disproportion between the number of bishoprics and the Protestant population; it was now proposed to destroy ten of these bishoprics, or rather, as the ministry was careful to explain, not to destroy but to consolidate them with those which remained. The incomes of some of the larger bishoprics were also curtailed; the surplus money thus arising was to be paid into the hands of ecclesiastical commissioners. Thus far there was not much objectionable in the Bill, though the Tories and High Churchmen of England disliked the destruction of so many sees. But there was a further measure, which opened the door to grave opposition. It was proposed to change the terms on which church lands were let so as to improve the position of the tenant without injuring the clergy. The tenant would be willing to pay for this advantage, and the sum thus gained was calculated at between two and three millions. This money would, as the mover of the Bill expressed it, be available for the purposes of the State. This had all the appearance of an act of confiscation, the property of the Church was to be taken and applied to purposes not ecclesiastical. But the Irish Secretary had as strong a view as the Tories of the sanctity of Church property, and the danger of tampering in ever so small a way with the rights of property. It was therefore found necessary by the supporters of the Bill to invent a theory to secure unanimity in the Cabinet; it was argued that the sum derived from the change of tenure did not exist before, but would be created by the present act of the Legislature, that it was therefore not Church property at all, and might be applied to the purposes of the State. The Bill in this shape was introduced by Lord Althorp on the 12th of February. It at once appeared open to objections on two sides. While O'Connell and the Irish scoffed at the relief, which consisted only in removing the church cess, and the English Radicals declared that instead of twelve bishops one was amply sufficient for the needs of the Irish Protestants, the Tories, refusing to recognize the delicate line between Church property and money gained by the Legislature from Church property, raised the cry that it was but a first step in confiscation, and threatened not the security of Church property only, but that of all other property. It appeared necessary to choose between the views of one or the other of these sets of critics, and in spite of his own views, Lord Althorp consented to be governed by the Conservative element in the Cabinet and to withdraw what was called the Appropriation clause. The removal of this clause, which contained the only important principle in the Bill, the right, namely, of Parliament to apply Church property to the wants of the State, rendered it so like a Tory measure, that with the assistance of that party it passed without difficulty in both Houses (July 30).

The Coercion Bill introduced Feb. 15, 1833, carried March 29.

But three days after the introduction of the Irish Church Bill in the House of Commons, Lord Grey introduced into the House of Lords its complement, the Coercion Bill. Here again the absence of broad liberality in the ministry was apparent. It was conceived in the spirit of the most absolute government, and implied a distinct determination to make no attempt at pacification by liberal concessions. It was the work of Mr. Stanley, the Irish Secretary, a man of great ability and vigour, but without much sympathy for the Irish character, and, as his subsequent career proved, at heart a Tory. There was no difficulty in making out a case for the Bill. A narration of a few of the crimes which had of late filled Ireland with horror made it evident that something must be done. In the province of Leinster alone, in the three months July, August, and September, there had been 1279 crimes, in the following three months the number had risen to 1646. During the year the catalogue of Irish crimes contained 172 homicides, 465 robberies, 568 burglaries, 454 acts of houghing cattle, 2095 illegal notices, 425 illegal meetings, 796 malicious injuries to property, 753 attacks on houses, 280 arsons, and 3156 serious assaults: in all upwards of 9000 crimes connected with the disturbed state of the country. Well might Mr. Macaulay say that he "solemnly declared he would rather live in the midst of many civil wars he had read of than in some parts of Ireland at this moment." It was not the number of crimes alone which rendered them terrible; they were carried on upon a system by which such terror had been excited that it was impossible to get juries to convict even after the clearest proof, or witnesses to give evidence as to what they knew. At the same time, the leaders of the people were teaching them, in public meetings and in assemblies of the so-called Association of Volunteers, to regard themselves as the victims of every form of oppression. To meet such a state of things it was proposed to place in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, in accordance with the Proclamation Act of the 8th of George IV., 1828, power to suppress every meeting or association which he regarded as dangerous to the preservation of peace, under whatever name it might call itself, and further to declare any district to be in a disturbed state, which was then to be regarded as a proclaimed district; its inhabitants were to be confined to their houses from an hour after sunset till sunrise, the right of meeting and petitioning was withdrawn from them without leave of the Lord Lieutenant, and they were placed under martial law. The Bill further gave power to enter houses in search of arms, forbade the distribution of seditious papers, and suspended the Habeas Corpus in the proclaimed districts. The Bill passed without difficulty in the House of Lords, where it was in harmony with the general feeling. In the Lower House it was introduced on the 27th of February by Lord Althorp, who, while corroborating the accounts of the outrages in Ireland, could not help showing his dissatisfaction at the extreme severity of the Bill. Not so Mr. Stanley, who, with the fiery vehemence which characterized him, turned upon O'Connell, and overwhelmed him with a flood of bitter invective, carrying the House completely with him, and securing the passage of the Bill, which was also most ably supported by Sir Robert Peel and his friends. Its effect was immediate and most satisfactory. Within a week of its passage the Marquis of Anglesey, who had returned to his office on Grey's accession to the ministry, had suppressed the Association of Irish Volunteers, the town and county of Kilkenny were then proclaimed, but so effective was the mere dread of the measure, that it was never found necessary to hold a single court-martial in the district, and within two months there was a decrease of two-thirds in the general list of crimes. A rapid rise in the funds showed that the moneyed public at least were pleased with the vigorous measure.

Changes in the ministry. March 1833.

Mr. Stanley's share in the Bill, the severity of his views with regard to Ireland, and the personal bitterness between himself and O'Connell, rendered his further tenure of the office of Secretary undesirable. He was moved to the Colonial Office, from which Lord Goderich, now become Earl of Ripon, withdrew to accept the Privy Seal, while Lord Durham, who had hitherto held that office, retired from the ministry (March 12). Mr. Stanley was succeeded by Sir John Cam Hobhouse, who however only held the office for two months, and was in turn succeeded by Mr. Littleton (May). The withdrawal of Lord Durham, although attributed and partly due to ill-health, was probably caused principally by the growing divisions in the Cabinet. The Conservative tendencies of the Prime Minister and the severity of the Irish Act were not in accordance with Lord Durham's advanced liberalism. The shortness of Hobhouse's tenure of office may be traced to somewhat similar causes, or at least to the decrease of the popularity of Government. In company with several others he had at the late elections pledged himself to vote for the repeal of the house and window tax. In April the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorp, brought in his budget. By careful economy, the abolition of sinecures, and the reduction of the public expenses, he was able to show a surplus of about a million and a half after replacing the deficit of the former year. This surplus he intended to employ in reducing some taxes which he regarded as particularly heavy, such as those on soap, on marine insurances, and some of the assessed taxes. But he impartially refused to listen either to the outcry of the towns for the abolition of the house and window tax, or to the clamours of the agriculturists against the malt tax; he regarded them both as necessary sources of revenue. The carelessness of Government subjected it to a temporary defeat on a subsequent motion for the reduction of the malt tax to one half. Though the defeat caused great irritation to the ministers it was speedily retrieved. A motion against the house and window tax was also brought in, and Lord Althorp, in opposing it, argued that the removal of either tax alone would be an unfair advantage to one or other of the rival interests, and that the removal of both was impossible; he introduced an amendment to the effect that the reduction of the malt tax and the repeal of the house tax would necessitate a general property and income tax, and a change in our financial system. As this amendment was carried, both the taxes were retained; but the ministers could not but feel that they owed their success to the support of their enemies, and the popular indignation was great. Hobhouse, unable to vote against Government, and thus to redeem his pledge, felt it incumbent on him to resign both his place and seat. On appealing again to his constituents at Westminster he was rejected for Colonel de Lacy Evans, a more advanced Liberal. The same thing happened in the cases of Dr. Lushington and Mr. William Brown in the Tower Hamlets and Southwark. A great indignation meeting, attended with some violence, was held near Coldbath Fields, and several great towns passed resolutions to the effect, that the ministers, by violating the constitution of Ireland, refusing to inquire into the public distress, continuing the house and window tax, and by forcing the whole malt tax, already once repealed, upon the nation, had betrayed the confidence of the people.

Weakness of the ministry.