1830.] Proceedings of the British Parliament. 377 



the cathedrals, if they could not be converted into parish churches, he 

 would pull them down. Why should the people be compelled to keep 

 structures of brick and mortar, of which they made no use? Instead of 

 appropriating the revenues of benefices, as they became vacant, to cleri- 

 cal purposes, he would cause them to be paid into the Consolidated 

 Fund." 



We find, on the other hand, all the most unvarying friends of the 

 Constitution in Church and State, reprobating the measure. 



Sir Robert Inglis declared, that " it is totally uncalled for," the Irish 

 church being remarkable for its advance in every high qualification of a 

 Christian church, since the Union ; the period when the English ministry 

 had ceased alternately to perplex it by idle legislation, and corrupt it by 

 official influence. 



" Mr. Traiit declared that the object of the commission was to reform 

 what needed no reformation. If the church of England was to be pulled 

 down, let it be pulled down by honest hands !" 



Then uprose Mr. Peel, smooth as ever, and delivered his sentiments 

 with " his usual solemnity of tone and manner /" 



te Mr. Peel observed that the proposed commission was merely for the 

 purposes of inquiry. Did the honourable member for Dover (Mr. Trant) 

 professing his anxiety to maintain the interests of religion, conceive that 

 he could impose upon any man by the cry of the church in danger ? Did 

 the honourable member not know was he so totally ignorant of all that 

 was passing around him, as not to know that the crown had already ap- 

 pointed a commission to inquire into the whole State of the Ecclesiastical 

 Jurisdiction of this country ? That commission had not yet extended to 

 Ireland. With reference to the appropriation of the revenue of the 

 church, the question ought to be approached with the utmost delicacy, 

 and an enlarged view ought to be taken of the effect of an unequal dis- 

 tribution of that revenue upon the promotion of learning and religion. 

 When any attempts were made upon the revenue of the church, he would 

 resist them ; but he would not permit the sarcasms of the honourable 

 member for Dover to prevent his acceding to a motion, which, he 

 believed, was not couched in the spirit of hostility to the church, and 

 which would tend to promote its best interests ! !" 



We know nothing that can be added to this speech ; it is incom- 

 parable in its kind, or beyond comparison with any thing, but the 

 speeches of the Right Honourable Robert Peel. What friend of the 

 " March of Intellect" but must congratulate this statesman on his dis- 

 covery, that the cry of the " church in danger" was an absurdity ; or, 

 but must rejoice in the gallant sincerity with which he pleads guilty to 

 that obsolete folly which made his creed during every year of his poli- 

 tical existence until the last ; when, indeed, his great friend and 

 master had the cruelty to tell him, " that his political existence was 

 terminated ?" But let us not do this politician the injustice to pass over 

 the evidences of his skill on this occasion. In the first place, " the 

 commission is only for inquiry !" not for action, of course ; not for any 

 already projected series of measures. It is, we suppose, for the gentle 

 and laudable purpose of supplying the unfurnished pigeon-holes of the 

 council chamber with summer reading for the Lord Ellenboroughs of 

 this world. But then comes a little opening of the subject" With 

 reference to the appropriation of the revenues of the Church, the ques- 

 tion ought to be approached with the utmost delicacy" So then, is it to 

 M.M. New Series VOL. IX. No. 52. 3 C 



