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THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: I suppose it is almost in vain to attempt an explanation. I have already explainedbut the hon. Gentleman, I presume, was not present when I did so that this was the merest oversight in the world. It was not intended, and I have already said, more than once, that it shall be altered.

humbly to submit these reflections as I passed unnoticed; and I thank my right those which seem never to have received hon. Friend for having shown how these the attention of the majority in this provisions would operate to the disadHouse. They come down here to vote vantage of every Protestant denominafor measures without having first consi- tion, and to the sole advantage of the dered their bearing. Their great object Church of Rome. I cannot forget that is to maintain a strong Government the hon. and learned Gentleman the which they may implicitly follow; but Solicitor Generalthey never appear to consider for one moment that, by what my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge calls the lapsus of the Solicitor General, provisions are contained in this Bill-I hope they will be abandoned -under which persons, not Roman Catholic laymen, but Roman Catholic priests, may be placed in high offices both at Oxford and Cambridge. I ask the representatives of the Wesleyan body in this House if that is what they desire? I ask the representatives of the Wesleyan body whether, if such a proposal were made with reference to their Colleges it is one that they would be thankful for or would approve? Yet hon. Members come down here for an hour or two, go home to dinner, and then come back to vote for a second reading of the Bill, as if it contained no such provisions! It is a line of action in this House which can only be met by counter action in the country, and I rejoice that that action has commenced. Last Session the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General told us, and warned us that, if we did not accept the measure of interference which he then proposed, we should have to submit to a stronger-that is, to one more disruptive of the Church of England and more antagonistic to its distinctive teaching; consequently more in accordance with the objects of the Church of Rome; and such is the nature of the present Bill. But, Sir, I hail the appearance of the measure on the Table, notwithstanding; because it seems to me to mark the tendency of the course which the Legislature is pursuing. It is all very well to tell me that the hon. and learned Gentleman cannot draw a Bill, and that these provisions are mistakes in the Bill. Why, Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman is a Law Officer of the Crown; who should be able to draw a Bill if he is not? and I ask, then, why these provisions appear in the Bill? Had they not been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge, the probability is that they would have

Mr. Newdegate

MR. NEWDEGATE: Still I may be permitted to observe that it is a great misfortune that the Law Officer of the Crown should have introduced, or allowed his subordinates to introduce, into the Bill provisions of such a suspicious character as these; because, as I was about to remark, when the hon and learned Member interrupted me, I cannot forget that the hon. and learned Member was the spokesman of the Government in resisting the proposal to inquire into certain Roman Catholic institutions, and that on that occasion he made a speech which very much surprised me. Yet it matters not, and so entété are the Dissenting bodies with the feeling of personal jealousy of the Church of England, that they are willing to inflict upon the Church provisions even of this anti-Protestant character, so only that the abolition of her distinctive privileges is secured. What is the difference between a constitutional and an absolute Government? It is this-that under a constitutional Government, regulated by law, the subject has rights which are in the nature of privileges, and these distinctive privileges include the right to have his children educated in accordance with the distinctive doctrines of the parent. my opinion, there can be no greater privilege than that. It is a right-it is secured by law. And if you invade that right in the case of the most numerous and influential religious community in Great Britain, how can you Dissenters expect that any exception will be made in your favour hereafter? Do the Dissenters believe that they are to be the only portion of Her Majesty's subjects who are to be left in possession of this distinctive right? Is that their position?

In

Is that their expectation? Do you think | bridge, meeting on one Sunday afternoon that you will be able to shield your- his tutor, the late Dr. Whewell, who selves hereafter under the plea of insig- told him that if he neglected to go to nificance, when your combined power church that afternoon he would do so at has succeeded in overturning these rights his peril; but he declined to go, and he of the Church of England? Let me did not go, and nothing ever came of it. warn you against making such a mis- The only way in which the University take. Depend upon it that retaliation was a place for religious education was will become a necessity. Nay, it has al- this -there was a certain rule in the ready become so in the case of the Colleges that the undergraduates should Church of Rome; and it will become so attend a certain number of chapels every in your case also. You forget that you week, whether they were Jews, Unitaare trifling with a great issue. You for- rians, Dissenters, Roman Catholics, or get that, in violating with exultation anything else. If they did that, there every Protestant feeling in the breasts of was no further requirement upon them. members of the Church of England, Of course, there was a slight theological and in striking down those rights and examination at the Little-go examination, privileges which are characteristic of which all had to pass through alike; their freedom, you are inviting us not but there were no specific lectures, which to respect your own. I have spoken in anyone was required to attend as part plain terms; and I desire to warn those of his education in Trinity College, with who are undoubted Protestants, though reference to any theological doctrine, or not members of the Church of England, any branch of religious learning. There and with whom I have a wish to act, was nothing which imposed on them any that if united with the representatives test between the ages of 18 and 22, or of the Church of Rome they continue required them to declare whether or these assaults upon the distinctive teach- not they were members of any particuing of the Universities, and upon our lar Church. A new state of things ocright to have that distinctive teaching curred whenever they desired to obtain a Protestant, they will have no guarantee share in the management of the Univerfor the preservation of rights and privi- sity, or to participate in its emoluments; leges by themselves which they will not and it was of this that everyone who respect in others. had any sense of justice complained. He knew nothing more demoralizing than to declare to a young man that, though he might be the third or fourth in the competition, he was nevertheless perfectly safe, and that, though others might be better than he on examination, he would still have all the advantages and secure the Fellowship, because he would swallow a test which his betters declined to take. This statement was not mere speculation, for the thing had happened, during the course of the last few years, over and over again in the University of Cambridge; and the result was that not only were men sent away from the University who would have been Dissenters in any case to the end of their days, but men who might have become members of the Church of England had been prevented from joining the Establishment, lest it might be said that they swallowed the test for the sake of putting so much a year into their pockets. No doubt, the Universities flourished in spite of all this; but every year the difficulty was getting greater and greater, and it was quite

MR. DENMAN said, that his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) was never more mistaken than when he asserted that those who supported this Bill did not support it on principle. No measure had ever been brought before the House founded on higher principle. As a member of the Church of England, and attached to the interests of Protestantism, he believed no measure would tend more to promote those interests than that now under consideration. Some remarkable speeches had been made on the present occasion, the most remarkable being that made by the noble Lord the Member for Calne (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice). The noble Lord told the House that, from his experience of Cambridge University, he conceived it to be a misnomer to call that institution a place of religious education, and that observation entirely accorded with his (Mr. Denman's) experience, though it was an experience of many more years ago. He remembered when he was an undergraduate at Trinity College, CamVOL. CCI. [THIRD SERIES.]

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clear that the present state of things could not last permanently. In 1834, Sir Robert Peel saw that the line could not be drawn where it was now, and where it had been for many years. Under these circumstances, was it not better to take the present chance of settling the question fairly and permanently by the Bill before the House, rather than to postpone the settlement from year to year, until something ultimately resulted which even many Members on the Ministerial side of the House might not desire? Last year he (Mr. Denman) voted against the measure of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), because he thought it could be better dealt with by Government, and now that it was so dealt with, he gave it his most hearty support as a member of the Church of England and a well-wisher of his University.

is given by College examinations, or of the very elaborate system of lectures and examinations which the candidates for Holy Orders have to go through. I have been exceedingly pleased at the calm and temperate manner in which the matter has been discussed, and have heard with pleasure some of the admissions of the Solicitor General and of the Prime Minister; but all that has been said on the other side of the House is a full and ample justification of the resistance which is being offered to the second reading of the measure. This is the first time that a compulsory and not a permissive Bill upon the subject has been brought into Parliament, and it is also the first time that such a measure was brought forward by the Government. Moreover, there has not been shown by its promoters any overwhelming necessity for bringing forward such a measure for revolutionizing the University system in all its details in the middle of this overcrowded Session. On this very night the measure has displaced the last stage in Committee of a Bill of first-class importance-the Irish Land Bill. The Bill will in a few weeks come into collision with that large measure of general elementary education which I should have thought would have been sufficient for this Session. Last year middle-class education had been dealt with; elementary education is on the programme of this year; and if the higher education of the Universities had been postponed for the calm consideration of the third Session of the Reformed Parliament, no one could have said that the delay was one to which any reasonable objection could have been offered. It would have been only fair to the Universities to have reserved the question until it could have been adequately dealt with in a full and carefully framed measure instead of being treated as an incidental parenthesis by a Bill which, by the confession of its promoters, has been carelessly and incompletely drawn. MR. DENMAN said, he had been at Some of the provisions have been alTrinity College since, and had never ready given up by the Solicitor General, heard a sermon in the chapel on Sunday. who owned that they were blunders, MR. BERESFORD HOPE: My hon. which he promised to remove in Comand learned Friend would have heard mittee. Again, the Prime Minister had one if he had gone to the 11 o'clock claimed for this measure that it should service. I will not detain the House by have the "character of being a settleenumerating the various details of the ment." But the Bill had not that chamultitudinous processes direct and in-racter, and on that ground I oppose the direct through which religious education proposal in its present shape. At the

MR. BERESFORD HOPE said: Sir, I shall not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman through the details of his speech, especially as that speech referred to a former state of things which no one wishes to see recalled. No one has any unwillingness to consider some broad and generous scheme, by which a share of the higher emoluments of the Universities may be given irrespective of religious tests. The hon. and learned Gentleman has treated us to an anecdote relating to Dr. Whewell, which might convey the impression that Dr. Whewell, when a tutor, was careless or negligent as to the attendance at Divine worship on the Lord's Day, to those who do not know that it had reference not to the Church services in the College chapels, but merely to the afternoon sermon in the University church. But what was the sequel of the story? Dr. Whewell became in time the Master of Trinity, and among the great alterations he made was to institute on every Sunday morning in the chapel a sermon for the undergraduates in addition to that afternoon sermon at the University church.

Mr. Denman

same time, I am ready and willing to discuss a scheme of compromise which shall be really a settlement. So are all who sit on this side of the House-with perhaps the exception of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire for all admit the necessity for a change on the ground of policy or expediency rather than of abstract right, and every man on that side of the House has come forward with concessions, basing his admission on sufficient reasons of expediency. The Solicitor General has gone more ahead than he was himself probably aware of, in his assumption of the worthlessness of founders' intentions expressed some centuries ago; and, indeed, his expressions reminded him (Mr. Hope) of an anecdote of the French Revolution. A very respectable gentleman lived in the enjoyment of an estate, to his own advantage of course, but also to the advantage of his neighbours. Some one else coveted the estates; and the owner produced his title deeds, which showed that he and his ancestors had enjoyed the property for centuries. So much more, said the revolutionary Judge, was it necessary that he should enjoy it no longer, but let some one else in for his turn. But as I have said, the Universities are willing to make concessions, and to allow not only the scholarships, but a fair proportion of the Fellowships to be filled by those who have not taken any tests. The Solicitor General and the Prime Minister have admitted that the Colleges ought still to retain their connection with the Church according to their own statutes. But, for a measure to have the character of a settlement, this is not enough. This Bill, so framed, will throw the apple of discord into the Colleges, in leaving it open, if not rather directly inviting, to those who desired further changes to agitate for their accomplishment through an alteration in their statutes. It is, I contend, not fair thus directly to invite the Dissenters to agitate for the acquisition of a larger share in the governing power in the Colleges when you are pretending to settle and to heal up the controversy for

ever.

The Church's old Parliamentary title will be totally abolished by this Bill, and a Parliamentary title will also be created for the participation in College emoluments of those who have not at present the right to share them. In fairness, then, let a new Parliamentary

title be also created for the retention by Churchmen of what is left to them, and do not leave this residue to the fluctuating provisions of private enactments, if the measure is really to have the character of a settlement. I say, declare openly what Fellowships Parliament will throw open to Dissenters, and let Parliament declare what offices shall be reserved for members of the Church of England. Obviously among the latter. should be the offices having reference to the religious teaching and the religious discipline of the Colleges and the conduct of public worship in the College chapel. It is clear that if the chapels and their worship are to be retained, there should be a provision for the continuous obligation of Holy Orders on so many of the College staff as shall make that worship a reality and not a nullity, and there should not be an absolute repeal of the 13th section of the Act of Uniformity. Among the College offices connected with the chapels stands prominently that of Dean. No doubt, where a Dean is required to be in Holy Orders by College statutes, this Bill will reach him. But I am not aware whether this obligation exists in all the Colleges of both Universities, and, even where it does, a change of statutes may, as the measure at present stands, undo the protection. I claim, then, the reservation of the office of Dean for Churchmen. Then there is also the office of tutor. At Oxford the tutor is, I understand, mainly an instructor; but at Cambridge he combines with the instruction a parental and disciplinary character, and is, in fact, the Collegiate official specially responsible to the parents of the students for their moral superintendence. Speaking, then, from the Cambridge point of view, I assert that it is only fair to the Church of England that this office should be reserved for members of the Church. This, however, need not apply to the assistant tutors, except so far as religious instruction is involved, for we freely recognise the admissibility of Dissenters to give instruction in science and literature. Those who wish to see the Church of England disestablished will not agree to these limitations; but those who desire to maintain the Universities as the great national schools of education for those liberal-minded clergymen, who are the especial glory of the English

(Court to give judgment as to liability of landlord.)

"Every landlord liable to a claim of a tenant for compensation in respect of improvements under writing, in the prescribed form, on his tenant, for Clause four of this Act may make a requisition in a declaration of the sums (if any) which such tenant, if he was then quitting his holding, might claim by way of such compensation."

liability of landlord,)-(Mr. Bruen,)Clause (Court to give judgment as to brought up, and read the first time.

Church, rather than see its future pas- |ting the ascertainment of the amount of tors handed over to the more narrow compensation to be paid by the landlord, influences of sectional seminaries, and in the event of a claim being made for who wish to preserve the Church of it by the tenant, any dispute on the point England in her character as the most to be decided by the Court. He begged liberal and tolerant Church in the world, to move, after Clause 13, to insert the will hold it to be a necessary reservation following clause :and right to be established by Parliamentary sanction, in order that the education of the clergy may not be divorced from the Universities and the Colleges which they contain. In the greatness of the interests of the Church of England, and of the stake which its ministry holds in the maintenance of its connection with the Universities, rests the justification for this demand. So, too, with regard to the theological Professorships. The Bill does not sufficiently provide for the preservation of their Church character; but this may be corrected in Committee. Having freely criticized the measure in many of its parts, I must express my satisfaction that it does not touch Colleges which may hereafter be founded, and I trust that no pressure from below the Gangway will induce the Solicitor General to abandon this concession. But, with every recognition of the good intentions of my hon. and learned Friend, I still feel that the Bill fails in those conditions of fixity which can give to it the "character of a settlement" and make it a satisfactory solution of this great question; and therefore, anxious to retain our Universities and Colleges as centres of religious instruction, I shall vote. against the second reading of the mea

sure.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided:-Ayes 191; Noes 66: Majority 125.

Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

IRISH LAND BILL-[BILL 29.] (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. John Bright.)

COMMITTEE. [Progress 19th May.] Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.) MR. BRUEN said, he rose to move the insertion of new clauses for facilitaMr. Beresford Hope

MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE said, the point urged by his hon. Friend was not new to the Government. It had been carefully considered by them when framing the Bill; but it had not been adopted, from the conviction that its adoption would result in a vast amount of unnecessary litigation throughout Ireland. He believed that in the vast majority of cases of improvement no occasion would arise for appealing to the Court.

COLONEL WILSON-PATTEN said, he believed that much of the discontent which existed in Ireland arose from the absence of some such means of registration as that proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Bruen).

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DowsE) said, he concurred with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the opinion that the adoption of the proposed clause would lead to the speedy commencement of innumerable law suits. For this reason, if for no other, he should oppose the clause. The operation of the Bill would be gradual. The clause would set on foot at once a number of contentious suits.

MR. G. B. GREGORY said, nobody could deal in Irish property with liabilities hanging over him which could not be ascertained, and which might arise at any moment, and to any amount, unless some such thing as the clause contemplated were done.

DR. BALL said, he thought some such machinery as that suggested in the clause was absolutely necessary. There would be great difficulty if a loan were

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