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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1023: COMMISSION ISSUED TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE IRISH CHURCH.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

COMMISSION ISSUED TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE IRISH CHURCH.

On the 2nd of June, when the house reassembled, Lord Althorp stated that Mr. Ward’s motion had compelled ministers to take up the question of the Irish church; and he informed the house that his majesty had appointed a commission of inquiry into the state of church property and church affairs generally in Ireland. This commission, he said, was to be a lay commission; and it was to visit the different parishes and districts throughout Ireland; to inquire on the spot into the number of Protestants in each parish; whether that number was stationary, increasing, or declining; whether it was a benefice, or if a parish forming part of a union; the distance and number of churches and chapels; the situation of the clergyman, how paid, and whether resident or non-resident; the times which divine service was or had been performed; the number of Protestants attending such service; and whether that attendance was stationary, on the increase, or declining. Similar inquiries were to be made in each parish and district with respect to Roman Catholics, and to Dissenters of every description, as well as to the number and the nature of schools in each parish. The commissioners were further to make minute inquiries in all parishes, touching other matters connected with the Irish church or church property, and to report thereupon. Lord Althorp, after making these statements, said that Mr. Ward’s motion went to pledge the house that the amount of church property in Ireland was beyond the wants of that establishment; and next, that parliament had a right to regulate the distribution of church property, and to determine upon the reduction of the Irish church revenues as now established by law. He was of opinion that the house should legislate deliberately upon so grave a question, and he trusted that Mr. Ward would withdraw his motion, and feel satisfied with what government had done. Mr. Ward, however, refused to withdraw his motion: he must press, he said, for a recognition of the principle, because, from what was passing around him, he was afraid that the present ministers would not long continue in office. Lord Althorp then moved the previous question, principally on the ground that, of all questions, this was one which most required much previous inquiry and detailed information. Mr. Hume, and Colonels Davies and Evans supported the original resolution, declaring that the shuffling mode of proceeding adopted by government in regard to this question, rendered it impossible to repose confidence in ministers. After a long debate the amendment, however, was carried by a majority of three hundred and ninety-six against one hundred and twenty. The majority would have been still larger, had not a considerable number of conservative members, unwilling to wear even the appearance of tampering with the question, left the house before the division. The subject was brought before the lords on the 6th of June, by the Earl of Wicklow, who moved an address to his majesty for a copy of the commission, a motion which Earl Grey said he would not oppose. Many of the peers embraced this opportunity of stating their objections to the commission, contending that the measures on which ministers appeared to have resolved would end in the ruin of the church. Concession, it was said, could not stop here; it must go on from step to step, till nothing was left to be conceded. Earl Grey denied that he and his colleagues looked forward to anything that could be justly called spoliation of the church; they contemplated a great alteration, but nothing more.