On Wednesday, the O'Conor Don moved the second reading of
his Irish University Bill, in a very moderate speech, in which he intimated that though he should prefer the new University's direct endowment out of the Irish Church Sur- plus, it need not necessarily be fatal to the Bill even though Parliament should choose to vote the revenue yearly, and so keep a Parliamentary check over its proceedings. But the O'Conor Don did not state whether the Roman Catholic hierarchy were or were not prepared to accept his proposals in satisfaction of their claims. Sir G. Campbell moved an amend- ment to condemn voting more funds to the higher education in Ireland till the elementary teaching had been adequately pro- vided for, and made a decidedly Voluntaryist speech in support of that amendment, which was seconded by Lord E. Fitz- mauriee, who urged that it did not matter whether you accom- modated yourself to Irish ideas, so long as you dealt out to them what he was pleased to call equal justice. His brilliant proposal was to let the Irish Catholics affiliate one or two Colleges to the Queen's University, and to increase the number of prizes and fellowships for which, in the examinations of that University, they would compete. In a word, Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice is willing, and even eager, to offer the Irish any- thing which he knows beforehand that they are quite deter- mined to reject. But what they value, he will not give.
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