Chapter IX: REIGN OF WILLIAM IV. (continued) (2)

These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the Government and the legislature to put an end to a system fraught with so much evil, and threatening the utter disruption of society in Ireland. In the first place, something must be done to meet the wants of the destitute clergy and their families. Accordingly, Mr. Stanley brought in a Bill in May, 1832, authorising the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to advance £60,000 as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. This measure was designed to meet the existing necessity, and was only a preliminary to the promised settlement of the tithe question. It was therefore passed quickly through both Houses, and became law on the 1st of June. But the money thus advanced was not placed on the Consolidated Fund. The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears of tithes and to reimburse itself for its advances out of the sum that it succeeded in recovering. It was a maxim with Mr. Stanley that the people should be made to respect the law; that they should not be allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The odious task thus assumed produced a state of unparalleled excitement. The people were driven to frenzy, instead of being frightened by the Chief Secretary becoming tithe-collector-general, and the army employed in its collection. The first proceeding of the Government to recover the tithes under the Act of the 1st of June was, therefore, the signal for general war. Bonfires blazed upon the hills, the rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the scene of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody campaign; there was considerable loss of life, and the Church and the Government thus became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Mr. Stanley being the commander-in-chief on one side, and O'Connell on the other, the contest was embittered by their personal antipathies. It was found that the amount of the arrears for the year 1831 was £104,285, and that the whole amount which the Government was able to levy, after putting forward its strength in every possible way, was £12,000, the cost of collection being £15,000, so that the Government was not able to raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign. This was how Mr. Stanley illustrated his favourite sentiment that the people should be made to respect the law. But the Liberal party among the Protestants fully sympathised with the anti-tithe recusants.

Mr. Stanley left behind him one enduring monument of his administration in Ireland which, though afterwards a subject of controversy and party strife, conferred immense advantages upon the country--the national system of education. It has been remarked that the principle of the Irish Establishment was that of a "missionary church;" that it was never based on the theory of being called for by the wants of the population; that what it looked to was their future spiritual necessities. It was founded on the same reasons which prompt the building of churches in a thinly peopled locality, the running of roads through an uncultivated district, of drains through a desert morass. The principle was philanthropic, and often, in its application, wise; but it proceeded on one postulate, which, unfortunately, was here wanting--namely, that the people will embrace the faith intended for them. This was so far from having hitherto been the case that the reverse was the fact. For nearly three centuries this experiment was tried with respect to the education of the rising generations of the Roman Catholics, and in every age it was attended by failures the most marked and disastrous. The Commissioners of National Education refer to this uniformity of failure in their sixth report, in which they observe,--"For nearly the whole of the last century the Government of Ireland laboured to promote Protestant education, and tolerated no other. Large grants of public money were voted for having children educated in the Protestant faith, while it was made a transportable offence in a Roman Catholic (and if the party returned, high treason) to act as a schoolmaster, or assistant to a schoolmaster, or even as a tutor in a private family. The Acts passed for this purpose continued in force from 1709 to 1782. They were then repealed, but Parliament continued to vote money for the support only of the schools conducted on principles which were regarded by the great body of the Roman Catholics as exclusively Protestant until the present system was established."

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In the report drawn up by Mr. Wyse, the chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the Foundation Schools in Ireland, in 1837, an interesting history is given of the origin, progress, and working of those obnoxious schools, and of other educational societies which followed. The Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland was established by Royal Charter in 1733, the avowed object being the education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church. It is sufficient to remark that the annual grants which were made to the schools in connection with it (well known as the Charter Schools) were, in consequence of the report of the Commissioners of 1824, gradually reduced, and finally withdrawn. In 1824 there were of those schools 32; the number of children in them amounted to 2,255. The grant for 1825 was £21,615. The grant was gradually reduced to £5,750 in 1832, when it was finally withdrawn. During nineteen years this system cost the country £1,612,138, of which £1,027,715 consisted of Parliamentary grants. The total number of children apprenticed from the beginning till the end of 1824 was only 12,745; and of these but a small number received the portion of £5 each, allotted to those who served out their apprenticeship, and married Protestants. The Association for Discountenancing Vice was incorporated in 1800. It required that the masters and mistresses in its schools should be of the Established Church; that the Scriptures should be read by all who had attained sufficient proficiency; and that no catechism be taught except that of the Established Church. The schools of the Association amounted in 1824 to 226, and the number of children to 12,769; of whom it was stated that 7,803 were Protestants, and 4,804 were Roman Catholics; but the Rev. William Lee, who had inspected 104 of these schools in 1819 and 1820, stated before the Commissioners of 1824 that he had found the catechism of the Church of Rome in many of them. The Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor was founded on the 2nd of December, 1811, and was managed by a committee of various religious persuasions. The principles which they had prescribed to themselves for their conduct were, to promote the establishment and assist in the support of schools in which the appointment of governors and teachers, and the admission of scholars, should be uninfluenced by religious distinctions, and in which the Bible or Testament, without note or comment, should be read by all the scholars who had attained a suitable proficiency in reading, excluding catechisms and books of religious controversy; at the same time it was to be distinctly understood that the Bible or Testament should not be used as a school book from which children should be taught to spell or read. A grant was accordingly made to the society of £6,980, Irish currency, in the Session of 1814-15. The system of this society was manifestly the same as that which was formerly called the Lancastrian system in England, and which, although adopted by the great body of the Protestant Dissenters there, was so much opposed by the bishops and clergy of the Established Church in general, that they completely prevented its application to schools for children of their communion. The Roman Catholic prelates and clergy set themselves with equal resolution against it in Ireland and with equal success. It was accordingly found in 1824, that of 400,348 children whose parents paid for their education in the general schools of the country, and whose religion was ascertained, there were 81,060 Protestants, and 319,288 Roman Catholics; while of 56,201 children educated under the Kildare Place Society--although theirs were schools for the poor, and the Roman Catholics bear a much greater proportion to Protestants in the poorer classes than in the higher--there were 26,237 Protestants, and only 29,964 Roman Catholics.

Various inquiries had been instituted from time to time by royal commissions and Parliamentary committees into the state of education in Ireland. One commission, appointed in 1806, laboured for six years, and published fourteen reports. It included the Primate, two bishops, the Provost of Trinity College, and Mr. R. Lovell Edgeworth. They recommended a system in which the children of all denominations should be educated together, without interfering with the peculiar tenets of any; and that there should be a Board of Commissioners, with extensive powers, to carry out the plan. Subsequent commissions and committees adopted the same principle of united secular education, particularly a select committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1824. These important reports prepared the way for Mr. Stanley's plan, which he announced in the House of Commons in July, 1832. His speech on that occasion showed that he had thoroughly mastered the difficult question which he undertook to elucidate. It was remarkable for the clearness of its statements, the power of its arguments, and for the eloquence with which it enforced sound and comprehensive principles. Mr. Spring-Rice having moved that a sum of £30,000 be granted for enabling the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to assist in the education of the people, and the House having agreed to the motion without a division, Mr. Stanley, in the following month, wrote a letter to the Duke of Leinster, in which he explained "the plan of national education," which afterwards bore his name. The first Commissioners were the Duke of Leinster, Archbishop Whately, Archbishop Murray, the Rev. Dr. Sadleir, Rev. James Carlile (Presbyterian), A. R. Blake (Chief Remembrancer, a Roman Catholic), and Robert Holmes, a Unitarian barrister. Mr. Carlile, minister of Mary's Abbey congregation in Dublin, was the only paid commissioner, and to him, during seven years, was committed a principal share in working the system. He selected the Scripture lessons, directed the compilation of the schoolbooks, aided in obtaining the recognition of parental rights, apart from clerical authority; in arranging the machinery and putting it in working order.

Much opposition was excited by the part of Mr. Stanley's letter to the Duke of Leinster which spoke of "encouraging" the clergy to give religious instruction, and requiring the attendance of the scholars at their respective places of worship on Sunday to be registered by the schoolmaster. This was treading on religious ground, and committing both Protestants and Catholics to the actual support of what they mutually deemed false. But the Government were driven to this course by the cry of "infidelity" and "atheism" which the new plan encountered as soon as it was proposed in Parliament. Explanations were afterwards issued by authority, showing that the "encouragement" of religious instruction meant only granting "facility of access" to the children out of school hours, not "employing or remunerating" the teachers. The Commissioners very properly treated the Bible as a book for religious instruction; but so far from offering the sacred volume an "indignity," or "forbidding" its use, they said: "To the religious instructors of the children they cheerfully leave, in communicating instruction, the use of the sacred volume itself, as containing those doctrines and precepts a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion." To obviate every cavil, however, as far as possible, without departing from the fundamental principle of the Board, it was arranged that the Bible might be read at any hour of the day, provided the time was distinctly specified, so that there should be no suspicion of a desire to take advantage of the presence of Roman Catholics. This satisfied the Presbyterians, who nearly all placed their schools in connection with the Board. But the great body of the Established clergy continued for some time afterwards hostile, having put forward the Church Education Society as a rival candidate for Parliamentary recognition and support. Its committee declared that the national system was "essentially defective" in permitting the Catholic children to refuse the Bible. They said this permission "involves a practical indignity to the Word of God," and that it was "carrying into effect the discipline of the Church of Rome, in restricting the use of the inspired writings." This was the grand charge against the Board, the vital point in the controversy.

On the 3rd of December Parliament was dissolved, and the first elections under the Reform Bill promptly followed. Though they were anticipated not without alarm, everything went off peacefully, and it was discovered that the new House of Commons was composed of much the same materials as the old. The two most singular choices were those of Oldham which retained Cobbett, and of Pontefract which selected the ex-prizefighter Gully. But the state of parties was considerably changed. The old Tory party was practically extinct; the Moderates began to call themselves Conservatives; and Whig and Radical, bitterly as they disagreed on many points, proceeded to range themselves under the Liberal banner. The Radicals promptly proved their independence by proposing Mr. Littleton for the Speakership against the old Speaker, Mr. Manners Sutton, but the Whigs voted against them, and they were in a minority of 31 against 241. It was clear from the Royal Speech that the Session was to be devoted to Irish affairs, and the Cabinet was much divided over the measures in contemplation. These were a Coercion Bill, much favoured by Mr. Stanley, and a Church Temporalities Bill, the pet project of Lord Althorp. After many evenings had been wasted in bitter denunciations of the Irish Secretary by O'Connell and his following, Lord Althorp, on the 12th of February, 1833, introduced the Church Temporalities Bill, and three days afterwards Earl Grey introduced the Coercion Bill in the House of Lords. It had an easy course through that House, and was then brought forward by Althorp in the Commons. Speaking against his convictions, he made a singularly tame and ineffective defence of the measure. Then Stanley took the papers which he had given to his leader, mastered their details in a couple of hours, and in a magnificent speech completely turned the current of debate, and utterly silenced O'Connell. Before the end of March the Bill had passed through all its stages in the House of Commons.

The Church Temporalities Bill, with some alterations, passed the Lower House; it encountered strong opposition in the Lords, who defeated the Ministry on one important amendment, but it ultimately passed, on the 30th of July, by a majority of fifty-four, several peers having recorded their protests against it, among whom the Duke of Cumberland was conspicuous. The Commissioners appointed under the Bill were the Lord Primate, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Chancellor and Chief Justice of Ireland, and four of the bishops, and some time afterwards three laymen were added. The following were the principal features of this great measure of Church Reform: Church Cess to be immediately abolished--this was a direct pecuniary relief to the amount of about £80,000 per annum, which had been levied in the most vexatious manner--and a reduction of the number of archbishops and bishops prospectively, from four archbishops and eighteen bishops to two archbishops and ten bishops, the revenues of the suppressed sees to be appropriated to general Church purposes. The archbishoprics of Cashel and Tuam were reduced to bishoprics, ten sees were abolished, the duties connected with them being transferred to other sees--Dromore to Down, Raphoe to Derry, Clogher to Armagh, Elphin to Kilmore, Killala to Tuam, Clonfer to Killaloe, Cork to Cloyne, Waterford to Cashel, Ferns to Ossory, Kildare to Dublin. The whole of Ireland was divided into two provinces by a line drawn from the north of Dublin county to the south of Galway Bay, and the bishoprics were reduced to ten. The revenues of the suppressed bishoprics, together with those of suspended dignities and benefices and disappropriated tithes, were vested by the Church Temporalities Act in the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to be applied by them to the erection and repairs of churches, to the providing for Church expenses hitherto defrayed by vestry rates, and to other ecclesiastical purposes. The sales which were made of perpetuities of Church estates, vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, produced upwards of £631,353; the value of the whole perpetuities, if sold, was estimated at £1,200,000. The total receipts of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1834 were £68,729; in 1835 they amounted to £168,027; and in 1836 they reached £181,045. The cost of the official establishment was at one time £15,000; during the later years, however, it averaged less than £6,000. Its total receipts, up to July, 1861, were £3,310,999. The Church Temporalities Act imposed a tax on all benefices and dignities whose net annual value exceeded £300, graduated according to their amount, from two and a half to five per cent., the rate of charge increasing by 2s. 6d. per cent. on every additional £10 above £405. All benefices exceeding £1,195 were taxed at the rate of fifteen per cent. The yearly tax imposed on all bishoprics was graduated as follows:--Where the yearly value did not exceed £4,000 five per cent.; not exceeding £6,000, seven per cent.; not exceeding £8,000, ten per cent.; and not exceeding £10,000, twelve per cent. In lieu of tax the Archbishopric of Armagh was to pay to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners an annual sum of £4,500, and the see of Derry to pay £6,160. The exact net incomes of the Irish bishops were as follows:--Armagh, £14,634; Meath, £3,764; Derry, £6,022; Down, £3,658; Kilmore, £5,248; Tuam, £3,898; Dublin, £7,636; Ossory, £3,874; Cashel, £4,691; Cork, £2,310; Killaloe, £3,310; Limerick, £3,987--total, £63,032. The total amount of tithe rent-charge payable to ecclesiastical persons--bishops, deans, chapters, incumbents of benefices, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was £401,114. The rental of Ireland was estimated, by the valuators under the Poor Law Act, at about £12,000,000--this rental being about a third part of the estimated value of the annual produce of the land.

After passing a Factory Act of some importance, which, however, was only the forerunner of much subsequent legislation, the House of Commons engaged in Poor Law Reform. In the winter of 1832-3 a very startling state of things was disclosed. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion of England in which the Poor Laws had their most extensive operation, and in which by much the largest expenditure of poor-rates had been made, was the scene of daily riot and nightly incendiarism. There were ninety-three parishes in four counties of which the population was 113,147 and the Poor-Law expenditure £81,978, or fourteen shillings and fivepence per head; and there were eighty parishes in three other counties the population of which was 105,728 and the Poor-Law expenditure £30,820, or five shillings and ninepence a head. In the counties in which the Poor-Law expenditure was large the industry and skill of the labourers were passing away, the connection between the master and servant had become precarious, the unmarried were defrauded of their fair earnings, and riots and incendiarism prevailed. In the counties where the expenditure was comparatively small, there was scarcely any instance of disorder; mutual attachment existed between the workman and his employer; the intelligence, skill, and good conduct of the labourers were unimpaired, or increased. This striking social contrast was but a specimen of what prevailed throughout large districts, and generally throughout the south and north of England, and it proved that either through the inherent vice of the system, or gross maladministration in the southern counties, the Poor Law had a most demoralising effect upon the working classes, while it was rapidly eating up the capital upon which the employment of labour depended. This fact was placed beyond question by a commission of inquiry, which was composed of individuals distinguished by their interest in the subject and their intimate knowledge of its principles and details. Its labours were continued incessantly for two years. Witnesses most competent to give information were summoned from different parts of the country. The Commissioners had before them documentary evidence of every kind calculated to throw light on the subject. They personally visited localities, and examined the actual operation of the system on the spot; and when they could not go themselves, they called to their aid assistant commissioners, some of whom extended their inquiries into Scotland, Guernsey, France, and Flanders; while they also collected a vast mass of interesting evidence from our ambassadors and diplomatic agents in different countries of Europe and America. It was upon the report of this commission of inquiry that the Act was founded for the Amendment and Better Administration of the Laws relating to the Poor in England and Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid foundation for a legislative enactment could scarcely be found, and the importance of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour by which it was obtained.

The statutory provision for all who cannot support themselves had now existed for upwards of 280 years. There was no considerable increase of population in England from the period when the Poor Laws were established up to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its people have been distinguished for their industry, thrift, and forethought. No other nation has furnished such unquestionable proofs of the prevalence of a provident and independent spirit. From the year 1601, when the