No More Learning

As for the blacks in the United
States, I feel for them, God knows. But I am not their keeper. I do not
stand in the same relation to the slaves of Louisiana and Alabama in
which I formerly stood to the slaves of Demerara and Jamaica. I am
bound, on the other hand, by the most solemn obligations, to promote the
interests of millions of my own countrymen, who are indeed by no means
in a state so miserable and degraded as that of the slaves in the United
States, but who are toiling hard from sunrise to sunset in order to
obtain a scanty subsistence; who are often scarcely able to procure the
necessaries of life; and whose lot would be alleviated if I could open
new markets to them, and free them from taxes which now press heavily
on their industry. I see clearly that, by excluding the produce of slave
labour from our ports, I should inflict great evil on my fellow-subjects
and constituents. But the good which, by taking such a course, I should
do to the negroes in the United States seems to me very problematical.
That by admitting slave grown cotton and slave grown sugar we do, in
some sense, encourage slavery and the Slave Trade, may be true. But
I doubt whether, by turning our fiscal code into a penal code for
restraining the cruelty of the American planters, we should not, on
the whole, injure the negroes rather than benefit them. No independent
nation will endure to be told by another nation, "We are more virtuous
than you; we have sate in judgment on your institutions; we find them
to be bad; and, as a punishment for your offences, we condemn you to pay
higher duties at our Custom House than we demand from the rest of the
world. " Such language naturally excites the resentment of foreigners.
I can make allowance for their susceptibility. For I myself sympathise
with them, I know that Ireland has been misgoverned; and I have done,
and purpose to do, my best to redress her grievances. But when I take up
a New York journal, and read there the rants of President Tyler's son, I
feel so much disgusted by such insolent absurdity that I am for a moment
inclined to deny that Ireland has any reason whatever to complain. It
seems to me that if ever slavery is peaceably extinguished in the United
States, that great and happy change must be brought about by the efforts
of those enlightened and respectable American citizens who hate slavery
as much as we hate it. Now I cannot help fearing that, if the British
Parliament were to proclaim itself the protector and avenger of the
American slave, the pride of those excellent persons would take the
alarm. It might become a point of national honour with them to stand by
an institution which they have hitherto regarded as a national disgrace.
We should thus confer no benefit on the negro; and we should at the same
time inflict cruel suffering on our own countrymen.

On these grounds, Sir, I can, with a clear conscience, vote for the
right honourable Baronet's propositions respecting the cotton and sugar
of the United States. But on exactly the same grounds I can, with a
clear conscience, vote for the amendment of my noble friend. And I
confess that I shall be much surprised if the right honourable Baronet
shall be able to point out any distinction between the cases.

I have detained you too long, Sir; yet there is one point to which I
must refer; I mean the refining. Was such a distinction ever heard of?
Is there anything like it in all Pascal's Dialogues with the old Jesuit?
Not for the world are we to eat one ounce of Brazilian sugar. But we
import the accursed thing; we bond it; we employ our skill and machinery
to render it more alluring to the eye and to the palate; we export it
to Leghorn and Hamburg; we send it to all the coffee houses of Italy
and Germany: we pocket a profit on all this; and then we put on a
Pharisaical air, and thank God that we are not like those wicked
Italians and Germans who have no scruple about swallowing slave grown
sugar. Surely this sophistry is worthy only of the worst class of false
witnesses. "I perjure myself! Not for the world. I only kissed my thumb;
I did not put my lips to the calf-skin. " I remember something very like
the right honourable Baronet's morality in a Spanish novel which I
read long ago. I beg pardon of the House for detaining them with such a
trifle; but the story is much to the purpose. A wandering lad, a sort
of Gil Blas, is taken into the service of a rich old silversmith, a most
pious man, who is always telling his beads, who hears mass daily,
and observes the feasts and fasts of the church with the utmost
scrupulosity. The silversmith is always preaching honesty and piety.
"Never," he constantly repeats to his young assistant, "never touch what
is not your own; never take liberties with sacred things. " Sacrilege, as
uniting theft with profaneness, is the sin of which he has the deepest
horror. One day, while he is lecturing after his usual fashion, an
ill-looking fellow comes into the shop with a sack under his arm. "Will
you buy these? " says the visitor, and produces from the sack some church
plate and a rich silver crucifix. "Buy them! " cries the pious man. "No,
nor touch them; not for the world. I know where you got them. Wretch
that you are, have you no care for your soul? " "Well then," says the
thief, "if you will not buy them, will you melt them down for me? " "Melt
them down! " answers the silver smith, "that is quite another matter. "
He takes the chalices and the crucifix with a pair of tongs; the silver,
thus in bond, is dropped into the crucible, melted, and delivered to the
thief, who lays down five pistoles and decamps with his booty. The
young servant stares at this strange scene. But the master very
gravely resumes his lecture. "My son," he says, "take warning by that
sacrilegious knave, and take example by me. Think what a load of guilt
lies on his conscience. You will see him hanged before long. But as to
me, you saw that I would not touch the stolen property. I keep these
tongs for such occasions. And thus I thrive in the fear of God, and
manage to turn an honest penny. " You talk of morality. What can be more
immoral than to bring ridicule on the very name of morality, by drawing
distinctions where there are no differences? Is it not enough that this
dishonest casuistry has already poisoned our theology? Is it not enough
that a set of quibbles has been devised, under cover of which a divine
may hold the worst doctrines of the Church of Rome, and may hold with
them the best benefice of the Church of England? Let us at least keep
the debates of this House free from the sophistry of Tract Number
Ninety.

And then the right honourable gentleman, the late President of the Board
of Trade, wonders that other nations consider our abhorrence of slavery
and the Slave Trade as sheer hypocrisy. Why, Sir, how should it be
otherwise? And, if the imputation annoys us, whom have we to thank for
it? Numerous and malevolent as our detractors are, none of them was ever
so absurd as to charge us with hypocrisy because we took slave grown
tobacco and slave grown cotton, till the Government began to affect
scruples about admitting slave grown sugar. Of course, as soon as our
Ministers ostentatiously announced to all the world that our fiscal
system was framed on a new and sublime moral principle, everybody
began to inquire whether we consistently adhered to that principle. It
required much less acuteness and much less malevolence than that of our
neighbours to discover that this hatred of slave grown produce was mere
grimace. They see that we not only take tobacco produced by means of
slavery and of the Slave Trade, but that we positively interdict freemen
in this country from growing tobacco. They see that we not only take
cotton produced by means of slavery and of the Slave Trade, but that we
are about to exempt this cotton from all duty. They see that we are at
this moment reducing the duty on the slave grown sugar of Louisiana.
How can we expect them to believe that it is from a sense of justice and
humanity that we lay a prohibitory duty on the sugar of Brazil? I care
little for the abuse which any foreign press or any foreign tribune may
throw on the Machiavelian policy of perfidious Albion. What gives me
pain is, not that the charge of hypocrisy is made, but that I am unable
to see how it is to be refuted.

Yet one word more. The right honourable gentleman, the late President
of the Board of Trade, has quoted the opinions of two persons, highly
distinguished by the exertions which they made for the abolition of
slavery, my lamented friend, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and Sir Stephen
Lushington. It is most true that those eminent persons did approve of
the principle laid down by the right honourable Baronet opposite in
1841. I think that they were in error; but in their error I am sure
that they were sincere, and I firmly believe that they would have been
consistent. They would have objected, no doubt, to my noble friend's
amendment; but they would have objected equally to the right honourable
Baronet's budget. It was not prudent, I think, in gentlemen opposite
to allude to those respectable names. The mention of those names
irresistibly carries the mind back to the days of the great struggle for
negro freedom. And it is but natural that we should ask where, during
that struggle, were those who now profess such loathing for slave grown
sugar? The three persons who are chiefly responsible for the financial
and commercial policy of the present Government I take to be the right
honourable Baronet at the head of the Treasury, the right honourable
gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the right honourable
gentleman the late President of the Board of Trade. Is there anything
in the past conduct of any one of the three which can lead me to believe
that his sensibility to the evils of slavery is greater than mine? I am
sure that the right honourable Baronet the first Lord of the Treasury
would think that I was speaking ironically if I were to compliment him
on his zeal for the liberty of the negro race. Never once, during the
whole of the long and obstinate conflict which ended in the abolition of
slavery in our colonies, did he give one word, one sign of encouragement
to those who suffered and laboured for the good cause. The whole weight
of his great abilities and influence was in the other scale. I well
remember that, so late as 1833, he declared in this House that he could
give his assent neither to the plan of immediate emancipation proposed
by my noble friend who now represents Sunderland (Lord Howick. ), nor to
the plan of gradual emancipation proposed by Lord Grey's government.
I well remember that he said, "I shall claim no credit hereafter on
account of this bill; all that I desire is to be absolved from the
responsibility. " As to the other two right honourable gentlemen whom
I have mentioned, they are West Indians; and their conduct was that
of West Indians. I do not wish to give them pain, or to throw any
disgraceful imputation on them. Personally I regard them with feelings
of goodwill and respect. I do not question their sincerity; but I know
that the most honest men are but too prone to deceive themselves into
the belief that the path towards which they are impelled by their own
interests and passions is the path of duty. I am conscious that this
might be my own case; and I believe it to be theirs. As the right
honourable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has left the
House, I will only say that, with respect to the question of slavery,
he acted after the fashion of the class to which he belonged. But as the
right honourable gentleman, the late President of the Board of Trade,
is in his place, he must allow me to bring to his recollection the part
which he took in the debates of 1833. He then said, "You raise a great
clamour about the cultivation of sugar. You say that it is a species of
industry fatal to the health and life of the slave. I do not deny that
there is some difference between the labour of a sugar plantation and
the labour of a cotton plantation, or a coffee plantation. But the
difference is not so great as you think. In marshy soils, the slaves who
cultivate the sugar cane suffer severely. But in Barbadoes, where the
air is good, they thrive and multiply. " He proceeded to say that, even
at the worst, the labour of a sugar plantation was not more unhealthy
than some kinds of labour in which the manufacturers of England are
employed, and which nobody thinks of prohibiting. He particularly
mentioned grinding. "See how grinding destroys the health, the sight,
the life. Yet there is no outcry against grinding. " He went on to say
that the whole question ought to be left by Parliament to the West
Indian Legislature. [Mr Gladstone: "Really I never said so. You are not
quoting me at all correctly. "] What, not about the sugar cultivation and
the grinding? [Mr Gladstone: "That is correct; but I never recommended
that the question should be left to the West Indian Legislatures. "] I
have quoted correctly. But since my right honourable friend disclaims
the sentiment imputed to him by the reporters, I shall say no more about
it. I have no doubt that he is quite right, and that what he said was
misunderstood. What is undisputed is amply sufficient for my purpose.
I see that the persons who now show so much zeal against slavery in
foreign countries, are the same persons who formerly countenanced
slavery in the British Colonies. I remember a time when they maintained
that we were bound in justice to protect slave grown sugar against the
competition of free grown sugar, and even of British free grown sugar.
I now hear them calling on us to protect free grown sugar against the
competition of slave grown sugar. I remember a time when they extenuated
as much as they could the evils of the sugar cultivation. I now hear
them exaggerating those evils. But, devious as their course has been,
there is one clue by which I can easily track them through the whole
maze. Inconstant in everything else, they are constant in demanding
protection for the West Indian planter. While he employs slaves, they
do their best to apologise for the evils of slavery. As soon as he is
forced to employ freemen, they begin to cry up the blessings of freedom.
They go round the whole compass, and yet to one point they steadfastly
adhere: and that point is the interest of the West Indian proprietors.
I have done, Sir; and I thank the House most sincerely for the patience
and indulgence with which I have been heard. I hope that I have at
least vindicated my own consistency. How Her Majesty's Ministers will
vindicate their consistency, how they will show that their conduct has
at all times been guided by the same principles, or even that their
conduct at the present time is guided by any fixed principle at all, I
am unable to conjecture.

*****




MAYNOOTH. (APRIL 14, 1845) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON
THE 14TH OF APRIL, 1845.

On Saturday the eleventh of April, 1845, Sir Robert Peel moved the
second reading of the Maynooth College Bill. After a debate of six
nights the motion was carried by 323 votes to 176. On the second night
the following Speech was made.

I do not mean, Sir, to follow the honourable gentleman who has just sate
down into a discussion on an amendment which is not now before us. When
my honourable friend the Member for Sheffield shall think it expedient
to make a motion on that important subject to which he has repeatedly
called the attention of the House, I may, perhaps, ask to be heard.
At present I shall content myself with explaining the reasons which
convince me that it is my duty to vote for the second reading of this
bill; and I cannot, I think, better explain those reasons than by
passing in review, as rapidly as I can, the chief objections which have
been made to the bill here and elsewhere.

The objectors, Sir, may be divided into three classes. The first class
consists of those persons who object, not to the principle of the grant
to Maynooth College, but merely to the amount. The second class consists
of persons who object on principle to all grants made to a church which
they regard as corrupt. The third class consists of persons who object
on principle to all grants made to churches, whether corrupt or pure.

Now, Sir, of those three classes the first is evidently that which
takes the most untenable ground. How any person can think that Maynooth
College ought to be supported by public money, and yet can think
this bill too bad to be suffered to go into Committee, I do not well
understand. I am forced however to believe that there are many such
persons. For I cannot but remember that the old annual vote attracted
scarcely any notice; and I see that this bill has produced violent
excitement. I cannot but remember that the old annual vote used to pass
with very few dissentients; and I see that great numbers of gentlemen,
who never were among those dissentients, have crowded down to the House
in order to divide against this bill. It is indeed certain that a large
proportion, I believe a majority, of those members who cannot, as
they assure us, conscientiously support the plan proposed by the right
honourable Baronet at the head of the Government, would without the
smallest scruple have supported him if he had in this, as in former
years, asked us to give nine thousand pounds for twelve months. So it
is: yet I cannot help wondering that it should be so. For how can
any human ingenuity turn a question between nine thousand pounds and
twenty-six thousand pounds, or between twelve months and an indefinite
number of months, into a question of principle? Observe: I am not now
answering those who maintain that nothing ought to be given out of
the public purse to a corrupt church; nor am I now answering those who
maintain that nothing ought to be given out of the public purse to
any church whatever. They, I admit, oppose this bill on principle. I
perfectly understand, though I do not myself hold, the opinion of the
zealous voluntary who says, "Whether the Roman Catholic Church teaches
truth or error, she ought to have no assistance from the State. " I also
perfectly understand, though I do not myself hold, the opinion of the
zealous Protestant who says, "The Roman Catholic Church teaches error,
and therefore ought to have no assistance from the State. " But I cannot
understand the reasoning of the man who says, "In spite of the errors
of the Roman Catholic Church, I think that she ought to have some
assistance from the State; but I am bound to mark my abhorrence of her
errors by doling out to her a miserable pittance. Her tenets are so
absurd and noxious that I will pay the professor who teaches them wages
less than I should offer to my groom. Her rites are so superstitious
that I will take care that they shall be performed in a chapel with a
leaky roof and a dirty floor. By all means let us keep her a college,
provided only that it be a shabby one. Let us support those who are
intended to teach her doctrines and to administer her sacraments to the
next generation, provided only that every future priest shall cost us
less than a foot soldier. Let us board her young theologians; but let
their larder be so scantily supplied that they may be compelled to break
up before the regular vacation from mere want of food. Let us lodge
them; but let their lodging be one in which they may be packed like pigs
in a stye, and be punished for their heterodoxy by feeling the snow and
the wind through the broken panes. " Is it possible to conceive anything
more absurd or more disgraceful? Can anything be clearer than this, that
whatever it is lawful to do it is lawful to do well? If it be right that
we should keep up this college at all, it must be right that we should
keep it up respectably. Our national dignity is concerned. For this
institution, whether good or bad, is, beyond all dispute, a very
important institution. Its office is to form the character of those who
are to form the character of millions. Whether we ought to extend any
patronage to such an institution is a question about which wise and
honest men may differ. But that, as we do extend our patronage to such
an institution, our patronage ought to be worthy of the object, and
worthy of the greatness of our country, is a proposition from which I am
astonished to hear any person dissent.

It is, I must say, with a peculiarly bad grace that one of the members
for the University to which I have the honour to belong (The Honourable
Charles Law, Member for the University of Cambridge. ), a gentleman who
never thought himself bound to say a word or to give a vote against
the grant of nine thousand pounds, now vehemently opposes the grant
of twenty-six thousand pounds as exorbitant. When I consider how
munificently the colleges of Cambridge and Oxford are endowed, and with
what pomp religion and learning are there surrounded; when I call to
mind the long streets of palaces, the towers and oriels, the venerable
cloisters, the trim gardens, the organs, the altar pieces, the solemn
light of the stained windows, the libraries, the museums, the galleries
of painting and sculpture; when I call to mind also the physical
comforts which are provided both for instructors and for pupils; when I
reflect that the very sizars and servitors are far better lodged and fed
than those students who are to be, a few years hence, the priests and
bishops of the Irish people; when I think of the spacious and stately
mansions of the heads of houses, of the commodious chambers of the
fellows and scholars, of the refectories, the combination rooms, the
bowling greens, the stabling, of the state and luxury of the great feast
days, of the piles of old plate on the tables, of the savoury steam of
the kitchens, of the multitudes of geese and capons which turn at once
on the spits, of the oceans of excellent ale in the butteries; and when
I remember from whom all this splendour and plenty is derived; when I
remember what was the faith of Edward the Third and of Henry the Sixth,
of Margaret of Anjou and Margaret of Richmond, of William of Wykeham and
William of Waynefleet, of Archbishop Chicheley and Cardinal Wolsey; when
I remember what we have taken from the Roman Catholics, King's College,
New College, Christ Church, my own Trinity; and when I look at the
miserable Dotheboys Hall which we have given them in exchange, I feel,
I must own, less proud than I could wish of being a Protestant and a
Cambridge man.

Some gentlemen, it is true, have made an attempt to show that there is
a distinction of principle between the old grant which they have always
supported and the larger grant which they are determined to oppose. But
never was attempt more unsuccessful. They say that, at the time of the
Union, we entered into an implied contract with Ireland to keep up this
college. We are therefore, they argue, bound by public faith to continue
the old grant; but we are not bound to make any addition to that grant.
Now, Sir, on this point, though on no other, I do most cordially agree
with those petitioners who have, on this occasion, covered your
table with such huge bales of spoiled paper and parchment. I deny the
existence of any such contract. I think myself perfectly free to vote
for the abolition of this college, if I am satisfied that it is a
pernicious institution; as free as I am to vote against any item of
the ordnance estimates; as free as I am to vote for a reduction of the
number of marines. It is strange, too, that those who appeal to this
imaginary contract should not perceive that, even if their fiction be
admitted as true, it will by no means get them out of their difficulty.
Tell us plainly what are the precise terms of the contract which you
suppose Great Britain to have made with Ireland about this college.
Whatever the terms be, they will not serve your purpose. Was the
contract this, that the Imperial Parliament would do for the college
what the Irish Parliament had been used to do? Or was the contract this,
that the Imperial Parliament would keep the college in a respectable and
efficient state? If the former was the contract, nine thousand pounds
would be too much. If the latter was the contract, you will not, I
am confident, be able to prove that twenty-six thousand pounds is too
little.

I have now, I think, said quite as much as need be said in answer to
those who maintain that we ought to give support to this college, but
that the support ought to be niggardly and precarious. I now come to
another and a much more formidable class of objectors. Their objections
may be simply stated thus. No man can justifiably, either as
an individual or as a trustee for the public, contribute to the
dissemination of religious error. But the church of Rome teaches
religious error. Therefore we cannot justifiably contribute to the
support of an institution of which the object is the dissemination of
the doctrines of the Church of Rome. Now, Sir, I deny the major of this
syllogism. I think that there are occasions on which we are bound to
contribute to the dissemination of doctrines with which errors are
inseparably intermingled. Let me be clearly understood. The question is
not whether we should teach truth or teach error, but whether we should
teach truth adulterated with error, or teach no truth at all. The
constitution of the human mind is such that it is impossible to provide
any machinery for the dissemination of truth which shall not, with the
truth, disseminate some error. Even those rays which come down to us
from the great source of light, pure as they are in themselves, no
sooner enter that gross and dark atmosphere in which we dwell than the
they are so much refracted, discoloured, and obscured, that they too
often lead us astray. It will be generally admitted that, if religious
truth can be anywhere found untainted by error, it is in the Scriptures.
Yet is there actually on the face of the globe a single copy of the
Scriptures of which it can be said that it contains truth absolutely
untainted with error? Is there any manuscript, any edition of the Old or
New Testament in the original tongues, which any scholar will pronounce
faultless? But to the vast majority of Christians the original tongues
are and always must be unintelligible. With the exception of perhaps one
man in ten thousand, we must be content with translations.
And is there
any translation in which there are not numerous mistakes? Are there not
numerous mistakes even in our own authorised version, executed as that
version was with painful diligence and care, by very able men, and under
very splendid patronage? Of course mistakes must be still more numerous
in those translations which pious men have lately made into Bengalee,
Hindostanee, Tamul, Canarese, and other Oriental tongues. I admire the
zeal, the industry, the energy of those who, in spite of difficulties
which to ordinary minds would seem insurmountable, accomplished that
arduous work. I applaud those benevolent societies which munificently
encouraged that work. But I have been assured by good judges that the
translations have many faults. And how should it have been otherwise?
How should an Englishman produce a faultless translation from the Hebrew
into the Cingalese? I say, therefore, that even the Scriptures, in every
form in which men actually possess them, contain a certain portion of
error. And, if this be so, how can you look for pure undefecated truth
in any other composition? You contribute, without any scruple, to the
printing of religious tracts, to the establishing of Sunday Schools, to
the sending forth of missionaries. But are your tracts perfect? Are your
schoolmasters infallible? Are your missionaries inspired? Look at the
two churches which are established in this island. Will you say that
they both teach truth without any mixture of error? That is impossible.
For they teach different doctrines on more than one important subject.
It is plain therefore, that if, as you tell us, it be a sin in a state
to patronise an institution which teaches religious error, either the
Church of England or the Church of Scotland ought to be abolished.
But will anybody even venture to affirm that either of those churches
teaches truth without any mixture of error? Have there not long been in
the Church of Scotland two very different schools of theology? During
many years, Dr Robertson, the head of the moderate party, and Dr
Erskine, the head of the Calvinistic party, preached under the same
roof, one in the morning, the other in the evening. They preached
two different religions, so different that the followers of Robertson
thought the followers of Erskine fanatics, and the followers of Erskine
thought the followers of Robertson Arians or worse. And is there no
mixture of error in the doctrine taught by the clergy of the Church of
England? Is not the whole country at this moment convulsed by disputes
as to what the doctrine of the Church on some important subjects really
is? I shall not take on myself to say who is right and who is wrong.
But this I say with confidence, that, whether the Tractarians or the
Evangelicals be in the right, many hundreds of those divines who every
Sunday occupy the pulpits of our parish churches must be very much in
the wrong.

Now, Sir, I see that many highly respectable persons, who think it a sin
to contribute to the teaching of error at Maynooth College, think it not
merely lawful, but a sacred duty, to contribute to the teaching of error
in the other cases which I have mentioned. They know that our version of
the Bible contains some error. Yet they subscribe to the Bible Society.
They know that the Serampore translations contain a still greater
quantity of error. Yet they give largely towards the printing and
circulating of those translations. My honourable friend the Member for
the University of Oxford will not deny that there is among the clergy of
the Church of England a Puritan party, and also an Anti-puritan
party, and that one of these parties must teach some error. Yet he is
constantly urging us to grant to this Church an additional endowment of
I know not how many hundreds of thousands of pounds. He would doubtless
defend himself by saying that nothing on earth is perfect; that the
purest religious society must consist of human beings, and must have
those defects which arise from human infirmities; and that the truths
held by the established clergy, though not altogether unalloyed with
error, are so precious, that it is better that they should be imparted
to the people with the alloy than that they should not be imparted at
all. Just so say I. I am sorry that we cannot teach pure truth to the
Irish people. But I think it better that they should have important and
salutary truth, polluted by some error, than that they should remain
altogether uninstructed. I heartily wish that they were Protestants. But
I had rather that they should be Roman Catholics than that they should
have no religion at all. Would you, says one gentleman, teach the people
to worship Jugernaut or Kalee? Certainly not. My argument leads to
no such conclusion. The worship of Jugernaut and Kalee is a curse to
mankind. It is much better that people should be without any religion
than that they should believe in a religion which enjoins prostitution,
suicide, robbery, assassination. But will any Protestant deny that it
is better that the Irish should be Roman Catholics than that they should
live and die like the beasts of the field, indulge their appetites
without any religious restraint, suffer want and calamity without any
religious consolation, and go to their graves without any religious
hope? These considerations entirely satisfy my mind. Of course I would
not propagate error for its own sake. To do so would be not merely
wicked, but diabolical. But, in order that I may be able to propagate
truth, I consent to propagate that portion of error which adheres to
truth, and which cannot be separated from truth. I wish Christianity to
have a great influence on the peasantry of Ireland. I see no probability
that Christianity will have that influence except in one form. That form
I consider as very corrupt. Nevertheless, the good seems to me greatly
to predominate over the evil; and therefore, being unable to get the
good alone, I am content to take the good and the evil together.

I now come to the third class of our opponents. I mean those who take
their stand on the voluntary principle. I will not, on this occasion,
inquire whether they are right in thinking that governments ought not to
contribute to the support of any religion, true or false. For it seems
to me that, even if I were to admit that the general rule is correctly
laid down by them, the present case would be an exception to that rule.
The question on which I am about to vote is not whether the State shall
or shall not give any support to religion in Ireland. The State does
give such support, and will continue to give such support, whatever may
be the issue of this debate. The only point which we have now to decide
is whether, while such support is given, it shall be given exclusively
to the religion of the minority. Here is an island with a population of
near eight millions, and with a wealthy established church, the members
of which are little more than eight hundred thousand. There is an
archbishop with ten thousand a year. If I recollect rightly, seventy
thousand pounds are divided among twelve prelates. At the same time the
Protestant dissenters in the north of Ireland receive, in another form,
support from the State. But the great majority of the population, the
poorest part of the population, the part of the population which is most
in need of assistance, the part of the population which holds that faith
for the propagation of which the tithes were originally set apart, and
the church lands originally given, is left to maintain its own priests.
Now is not this a case which stands quite by itself? And may not even
those who hold the general proposition, that every man ought to pay
his own spiritual pastor, yet vote, without any inconsistency, for this
bill? I was astonished to hear the honourable Member for Shrewsbury (Mr
Disraeli. ) tell us that, if we make this grant, it will be impossible
for us to resist the claims of any dissenting sect. He particularly
mentioned the Wesleyan Methodists. Are the cases analogous? Is there the
slightest resemblance between them? Let the honourable gentleman show
me that of the sixteen millions of people who inhabit England thirteen
millions are Wesleyan Methodists. Let him show me that the members of
the Established Church in England are only one tenth of the population.
Let him show me that English dissenters who are not Wesleyan Methodists
receive a Regium Donum. Let him show me that immense estates bequeathed
to John Wesley for the propagation of Methodism have, by Act of
Parliament, been taken from the Methodists and given to the Church.
If he can show me this, I promise him that, whenever the Wesleyan
Methodists shall ask for twenty-six thousand pounds a year to educate
their ministers, I shall be prepared to grant their request. But neither
the case of the Methodists nor any other case which can be mentioned,
resembles the case with which we have to do. Look round Europe, round
the world, for a parallel; and you will look in vain. Indeed the state
of things which exists in Ireland never could have existed had not
Ireland been closely connected with a country, which possessed a great
superiority of power, and which abused that superiority. The burden
which we are now, I hope, about to lay on ourselves is but a small
penalty for a great injustice. Were I a staunch voluntary, I should
still feel that, while the church of eight hundred thousand people
retains its great endowments, I should not be justified in refusing this
small boon to the church of eight millions.

To sum up shortly what I have said; it is clear to me in the first place
that, if we have no religious scruple about granting to this College
nine thousand pounds for one year, we ought to have no religious scruple
about granting twenty-six thousand pounds a year for an indefinite term.

Secondly, it seems to me that those persons who tell us that we ought
never in any circumstances to contribute to the propagation of error do
in fact lay down a rule which would altogether interdict the propagation
of truth.

Thirdly, it seems to me that, even on the hypothesis that the voluntary
principle is the sound principle, the present case is an excepted case,
to which it would be unjust and unwise to apply that principle.

So much, Sir, as to this bill; and now let me add a few words about
those by whom it has been framed and introduced. We were exhorted,
on the first night of this debate, to vote against the bill, without
inquiring into its merits, on the ground that, good or bad, it was
proposed by men who could not honestly and honourably propose it. A
similar appeal has been made to us this evening. In these circumstances,
Sir, I must, not I hope from party spirit, not, I am sure, from personal
animosity, but from a regard for the public interest, which must be
injuriously affected by everything which tends to lower the character
of public men, say plainly what I think of the conduct of Her Majesty's
Ministers. Undoubtedly it is of the highest importance that we should
legislate well. But it is also of the highest importance that those who
govern us should have, and should be known to have, fixed principles,
and should be guided by those principles both in office and in
opposition. It is of the highest importance that the world should not be
under the impression that a statesman is a person who, when he is out,
will profess and promise anything in order to get in, and who, when he
is in, will forget all that he professed and promised when he was out.
I need not, I suppose, waste time in proving that a law may be in itself
an exceedingly good law, and yet that it may be a law which, when viewed
in connection with the former conduct of those who proposed it, may
prove them to be undeserving of the confidence of their country. When
this is the case, our course is clear. We ought to distinguish between
the law and its authors. The law we ought, on account of its intrinsic
merits, to support. Of the authors of the law, it may be our duty to
speak in terms of censure.

In such terms I feel it to be my duty to speak of Her Majesty's
present advisers. I have no personal hostility to any of them; and that
political hostility which I do not disavow has never prevented me from
doing justice to their abilities and virtues. I have always admitted,
and I now most willingly admit, that the right honourable Baronet at the
head of the Government possesses many of the qualities of an excellent
minister, eminent talents for debate, eminent talents for business,
great experience, great information, great skill in the management of
this House. I will go further, and say that I give him full credit for
a sincere desire to promote the welfare of his country. Nevertheless,
it is impossible for me to deny that there is too much ground for the
reproaches of those who, having, in spite of a bitter experience, a
second time trusted him, now find themselves a second time deluded.
I cannot but see that it has been too much his practice, when in
opposition, to make use of passions with which he has not the slightest
sympathy, and of prejudices which he regards with profound contempt. As
soon as he is in power a change takes place. The instruments which have
done his work are flung aside. The ladder by which he has climbed is
kicked down. I am forced to say that the right honourable Baronet acts
thus habitually and on system. The instance before us is not a solitary
instance. I do not wish to dwell on the events which took place
seventeen or eighteen years ago, on the language which the right
honourable Baronet held about the Catholic question when he was out of
power in 1827, and on the change which twelve months of power produced.
I will only say that one such change was quite enough for one life.
Again the right honourable Baronet was in opposition; and again he
employed his old tactics. I will not minutely relate the history of the
manoeuvres by which the Whig Government was overthrown. It is enough
to say that many powerful interests were united against that Government
under the leading of the right honourable Baronet, and that of
those interests there is not one which is not now disappointed and
complaining. To confine my remarks to the subject immediately before
us--can any man deny that, of all the many cries which were raised
against the late administration, that which most strongly stirred the
public mind was the cry of No Popery? Is there a single gentleman in the
House who doubts that, if, four years ago, my noble friend the Member
for the City of London had proposed this bill, he would have been
withstood by every member of the present Cabinet? Four years ago, Sir,
we were discussing a very different bill. The party which was then in
opposition, and which is now in place, was attempting to force through
Parliament a law, which bore indeed a specious name, but of which the
effect would have been to disfranchise the Roman Catholic electors of
Ireland by tens of thousands. It was in vain that we argued, that we
protested, that we asked for the delay of a single session, for delay
till an inquiry could be made, for delay till a Committee should report.
We were told that the case was one of extreme urgency, that every hour
was precious, that the House must, without loss of time, be purged of
the minions of Popery. These arts succeeded. A change of administration
took place. The right honourable Baronet came into power. He has now
been near four years in power. He has had a Parliament which would,
beyond all doubt, have passed eagerly and gladly that Registration
Bill which he and his colleagues had pretended that they thought
indispensable to the welfare of the State. And where is that bill now?
Flung away; condemned by its own authors; pronounced by them to be so
oppressive, so inconsistent with all the principles of representative
government, that, though they had vehemently supported it when they
were on your left hand, they could not think of proposing it from the
Treasury Bench. And what substitute does the honourable Baronet give his
followers to console them for the loss of their favourite Registration
Bill? Even this bill for the endowment of Maynooth College. Was such a
feat of legerdemain ever seen? And can we wonder that the eager, honest,
hotheaded Protestants, who raised you to power in the confident hope
that you would curtail the privileges of the Roman Catholics, should
stare and grumble when you propose to give public money to the Roman
Catholics? Can we wonder that, from one end of the country to the other,
everything should be ferment and uproar, that petitions should, night
after night, whiten all our benches like a snowstorm? Can we wonder that
the people out of doors should be exasperated by seeing the very men
who, when we were in office, voted against the old grant to Maynooth,
now pushed and pulled into the House by your whippers-in to vote for
an increased grant? The natural consequences follow. All those fierce
spirits, whom you hallooed on to harass us, now turn round and begin to
worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop: Exeter Hall sets up its
bray: Mr Macneile shudders to see more costly cheer than ever provided
for the priests of Baal at the table of the Queen; and the Protestant
operatives of Dublin call for impeachments in exceedingly bad English.
But what did you expect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you
called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him?
Did you think, when you went on, session after session, thwarting and
reviling those whom you knew to be in the right, and flattering all the
worst passions of those whom you knew to be in the wrong, that the day
of reckoning would never come? It has come. There you sit, doing penance
for the disingenuousness of years. If it be not so, stand up manfully
and clear your fame before the House and the country. Show us that some
steady principle has guided your conduct with respect to Irish affairs.
Show us how, if you are honest in 1845, you can have been honest in
1841. Explain to us why, after having goaded Ireland to madness for the
purpose of ingratiating yourselves with the English, you are now setting
England on fire for the purpose of ingratiating yourselves with the
Irish. Give us some reason which shall prove that the policy which you
are following, as Ministers, is entitled to support, and which shall
not equally prove you to have been the most factious and unprincipled
opposition that ever this country saw.

But, Sir, am I, because I think thus of the conduct of Her Majesty's
Ministers, to take the counsel of the honourable member for Shrewsbury
and to vote against their bill? Not so. I know well that the fate of
this bill and the fate of the administration are in our hands. But
far be it from us to imitate the arts by which we were overthrown. The
spectacle exhibited on the bench opposite will do quite mischief enough.
That mischief will not be lessened, but doubled, if there should be an
answering display of inconsistency on this side of the House. If this
bill, having been introduced by Tories, shall be rejected by Whigs, both
the great parties in the State will be alike discredited. There will
be one vast shipwreck of all the public character in the country.
Therefore, making up my mind to sacrifices which are not unattended with
pain, and repressing some feelings which stir strongly within me, I have
determined to give my strenuous support to this bill. Yes, Sir, to this
bill, and to every bill which shall seem to me likely to promote
the real Union of Great Britain and Ireland, I will give my support,
regardless of obloquy, regardless of the risk which I may run of losing
my seat in Parliament. For such obloquy I have learned to consider as
true glory; and as to my seat I am determined that it never shall be
held by an ignominious tenure; and I am sure that it can never be lost
in a more honourable cause.

*****




THE CHURCH OF IRELAND. (APRIL 23, 1845. ) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS ON THE 23RD OF APRIL 1845.

On the twenty-third of April 1845, the order of the day for going into
Committee on the Maynooth College Bill was read. On the motion that the
Speaker should leave the chair, Mr Ward, Member for Sheffield, proposed
the following amendment:--

"That it is the opinion of this House that any provision to be made
for the purposes of the present Bill ought to be taken from the funds
already applicable to ecclesiastical purposes in Ireland. "

After a debate of two nights the amendment was rejected by 322 votes to
148. On the first night the following Speech was made.

I was desirous, Sir, to catch your eye this evening, because it happens
that I have never yet found an opportunity of fully explaining my views
on the important subject of the Irish Church. Indeed, I was not in this
country when that subject for a time threw every other into the
shade, disturbed the whole political world, produced a schism in the
Administration of Lord Grey, and overthrew the short Administration of
the right honourable Baronet opposite. The motion now before us opens,
I conceive, the whole question. My honourable friend the Member for
Sheffield, indeed, asks us only to transfer twenty-six thousand pounds a
year from the Established Church of Ireland to the College of Maynooth.
But this motion, I think, resembles an action of ejectment brought for
a single farm, with the view of trying the title to a large estate.
Whoever refuses to assent to what is now proposed must be considered as
holding the opinion that the property of the Irish Church ought to be
held inviolate: and I can scarcely think that any person will vote for
what is now proposed, who is not prepared to go very much farther. The
point at issue, I take, therefore, to be this; whether the Irish Church,
as now constituted, shall be maintained or not?

Now, Sir, when a legislator is called up to decide whether an
institution shall be maintained or not, it seems to me that he ought in
the first place to examine whether it be a good or a bad institution.
This may sound like a truism; but if I am to judge by the speeches
which, on this and former occasions, have been made by gentlemen
opposite, it is no truism, but an exceedingly recondite truth. I, Sir,
think the Established Church of Ireland a bad institution. I will go
farther. I am not speaking in anger, or with any wish to excite anger in
others; I am not speaking with rhetorical exaggeration: I am calmly and
deliberately expressing, in the only appropriate terms, an opinion which
I formed many years ago, which all my observations and reflections have
confirmed, and which I am prepared to support by reasons, when I say
that, of all the institutions now existing in the civilised world, the
Established Church of Ireland seems to me the most absurd.

I cannot help thinking that the speeches of those who defend this Church
suffice of themselves to prove that my views are just. For who ever
heard anybody defend it on its merits? Has any gentleman to-night
defended it on its merits? We are told of the Roman Catholic oath; as
if that oath, whatever be its meaning, whatever be the extent of the
obligation which it lays on the consciences of those who take it, could
possibly prove this Church to be a good thing. We are told that Roman
Catholics of note, both laymen and divines, fifty years ago, declared
that, if they were relieved from the disabilities under which they then
lay, they should willingly see the Church of Ireland in possession of
all its endowments: as if anything that anybody said fifty years ago
could absolve us from the plain duty of doing what is now best for the
country. We are told of the Fifth Article of Union; as if the Fifth
Article of Union were more sacred than the Fourth. Surely, if there be
any article of the Union which ought to be regarded as inviolable, it is
the Fourth, which settles the number of members whom Great Britain and
Ireland respectively are to send to Parliament. Yet the provisions of
the Fourth Article have been altered with the almost unanimous assent of
all parties in the State. The change was proposed by the noble lord
who is now Secretary for the Colonies. It was supported by the right
honourable Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, and by other
members of the present Administration. And so far were the opponents of
the Reform Bill from objecting to this infraction of the Treaty of Union
that they were disposed to go still farther. I well remember the night
on which we debated the question, whether Members should be given to
Finsbury, Marylebone, Lambeth, and the Tower Hamlets. On that occasion,
the Tories attempted to seduce the Irish Reformers from us by promising
that Ireland should have a share of the plunder of the metropolitan
districts. After this, Sir, I must think it childish in gentlemen
opposite to appeal to the Fifth Article of the Union. With still greater
surprise, did I hear the right honourable gentleman the Secretary for
Ireland say that, if we adopt this amendment, we shall make all landed
and funded property insecure. I am really ashamed to answer such an
argument. Nobody proposes to touch any vested interest; and surely
it cannot be necessary for me to point out to the right honourable
gentleman the distinction between property in which some person has a
vested interest, and property in which no person has a vested interest.
That distinction is part of the very rudiments of political science.
Then the right honourable gentleman quarrels with the form of the
amendment. Why, Sir, perhaps a more convenient form might have been
adopted. But is it by cavils like these that a great institution should
be defended? And who ever heard the Established Church of Ireland
defended except by cavils like these? Who ever heard any of her
advocates speak a manly and statesmanlike language? Who ever heard any
of her advocates say, "I defend this institution because it is a good
institution: the ends for which an Established Church exists are such
and such: and I will show you that this Church attains those ends? "
Nobody says this.